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Asked to Disarm in Burke Wal Mart

VApatriot

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998
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Burke/Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
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Considering the recently revived Wal Mart thread, I have a rathercoincidental encounter to tell y'all about.

After two yearsof OCing andmaking manytrips to the Burke Walmart while OCing,today (09/16/09) I was asked to disarm because there was apparently a customer complaint.

I entered through the garden center door and made a hard left to make my way down the side wall to the back of the store. My right side (strong side) was visible to anyone in theaisles as I passed. After passing onlyabout five or sixaisles at a brisk pace, I saw a man step out behind mefrom anaisle Ihad just gone by.

He called and asked what I had there. I told him it was a Springfield XD. At that point he said he was Walmart security, while he displayed his ID to prove it, and he told me I could not carry a gun into the store.

WhileI tried to fish my voice recorded out of my pocket (which Ipurchased while OCingat the same store only a few weeks ago)I exchanged a few comments with him about never havingbeen told this before during the many other times I hadOCed at that store.

Most ofthe followinginteraction between the security employee (SE), a manager named Michelle (MM), and myself is recorded,and I willattachtheaudiofile.

I had a short conversation with the SE that ended with me asking speak to a manager. The SE radioed his manager,and asked her to meet us in the sporting goods section. I stopped recording while we waited a minuted or two for the manager to come over and then again while she stepped away tomake a call to confirm that no permit was needed to open carry (though I have no idea who she called), but I combined this into one audio file, so the actual time this lasted was longer than the amount recorded.

MM's basic point was that any complaint could cause lost business, and even if she wasn't getting complaints customers might still be leaving without saying anything. She said she was from Texas and didn't really have a problem with it (OC), but given the area. . . blah, blah, blah. I mentioned what I have heardhereabout the supposed corporate policy (or lack there of), but MM went to the "This is a private company, and we can do what we want." line.

I explained that ifit was going to be disarm orleave, that I would agree to leave. I turned off my recorder andmade a few stepsto leave before I remember to ask for a card from Michelle the manager. She went back to her office to get one for me while I waited in sporting goods with the SE.

While I waswaiting for the card, a middle-aged black man who waswaiting at the counterto get some .308joined in the conversation. Speaking both to me and the SE, said "That's why I got a concealed permit. I got tiered of all the hassle." He talked about going for walks at Burke Lake and having the cops show up and say they had gotten fifty calls about a MWAG. He said he would always got the "If you have a concealed permit, use it." line, so for the most part he justdoes. The SE (also black)joined back in with "I know exactly what you mean." He went on to say that if I had hada CHP they wouldn't have had a problem with me carrying at all; they would have just asked me to cover up and go to CC, as to not scare anyone.

The manager then returned with her card, and the SE told be that unfortunately hehad to be "that guy" and follow me out. He stopped once he couldhave a line of sight on me the rest of the way out the door,and that was the end of it.

Both employees were very polite and professional, and even seemed somewhat apologetic, but I am still pretty unhappy about the whole thing. I do plan to follow up with a higher level manager or corporate if necessary, to find out if I am welcome back in the store while still OCing without a permit.

*Still working on getting the audio file attached.
 

curtiswr

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Isn't it Wal Mart's policy to follow the laws of whatever state the particular store is in? Reckon the manager needs some educatin' if so. Don't suppose corporate would like it too much if they got wind that a manager disregarded corporate policy and made their own as they saw fit.

You can download a free converter and lower the bit rate of the mp3 to get it down in size (also a quality sacrifice too, but shouldn't be too bad for just voice). The software that came with your voice recorder might be able to do this.
 

virginiatuck

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Loudoun County, Virginia, USA
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VApatriot wrote:
Right now as an MP3 my audiofile is 10.7Mb, which is too large to attach. Can some one explain how I can compress the file or post it in some other way?
try this: http://mp3splt.sourceforge.net/mp3splt_page/downloads.php

Split it into 2 or 3 chunks.

At least mp3splt is GPL and there's a port available for Windows as well as *nix....
 

SoldierMedic

Lone Star Veteran
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Sep 11, 2008
Messages
123
Location
Richmond, Virginia, USA
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curtiswr wrote:
Isn't it Wal Mart's policy to follow the laws of whatever state the particular store is in? Reckon the manager needs some educatin' if so. Don't suppose corporate would like it too much if they got wind that a manager disregarded corporate policy and made their own as they saw fit.

por supuesto...

apparently they didn't get the memo. :banghead:
 

VApatriot

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Burke/Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
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After dividing the file into sizes that should be within the limits for attachments, it still doesn't seem to be posting correctly. I guess I'll see what I can do with my other options.
 

nova

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Interesting to hear. I live off of Burke Lake Rd so the Burke wallyworld is the closest one to me.

EDIT: Burke walmart sells ammo? Been awhile since I've been back to sporting goods there, I thought they stopped. :question:
 

VApatriot

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Burke/Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
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nova wrote:
Interesting to hear. I live off of Burke Lake Rd so the Burke wallyworld is the closest one to me.

EDIT: Burke walmart sells ammo? Been awhile since I've been back to sporting goods there, I thought they stopped. :question:
They do, but they never have much in stock. They did stop sell any guns a few years ago, but for now they still have ammo.However, everything but the shotgun ammo is locked in the counter, and there is go glass to see what they do have in stock at the moment. So you have to find a qualified employee just to open the counter andsee if they have anything you need. It is too much of a pain, so I never bother.
 

nova

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VApatriot wrote:
nova wrote:
Interesting to hear. I live off of Burke Lake Rd so the Burke wallyworld is the closest one to me.

EDIT: Burke walmart sells ammo? Been awhile since I've been back to sporting goods there, I thought they stopped. :question:
They do, but they never have much in stock. They did stop sell any guns a few years ago, but for now they still have ammo.However, everything but the shotgun ammo is locked in the counter, and there is go glass to see what they do have in stock at the moment. So you have to find a qualified employee just to open the counter andsee if they have anything you need. It is too much of a pain, so I never bother.
thanks for the info
 

NoVA York

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Hey VAPatriot, the downsampled audio file was sent.

Speaking of Wally World, I've been there twice in Fair Lakes; CC'd, looking for ammo. Found nothing but shot shells. I stick to Cabellas.com or ammunitiontogo.com (they had Tactical HSTs in stock not too long ago... gone now.)
 

IanB

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There's no need to reduce the quality or split files, I can host any file on my server. I've pm'd vapatriot the address to email the file to but I'm going to bed. If he gets it to me overnight I'll have it posted first thing in the morning.
 

VApatriot

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NoVA York wrote:
Attached is VApatriot's encounter with Wal-Mart. It's been resampled to 727k and I've removed some background noise.

Carry on.
Thanks for the help with that. Sorry its so hard to hear what the manager was saying. She was speaking pretty quietly and there was a good bit of other noise in the store. At one point someone have a duplicate key cut about three feet away.
 

NoVA York

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So that's what that loud noise was...

I could have isolated and amplified the SG and MM's voices, but my wife would kill me for spending more hours in front of a computer.
 

Mike

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Did you follow up witht eh GM or reguional manager? The Kingstowne WalMart manager called me personally a few weeks ago to confirm that open carry was OK at her store.
 

wewd

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Wal-Mart's corporate policy is to follow state law. If OC is legal, then it's allowed in Wal-Mart. Same for CC. Managers are not allowed to set policy contradictory to corporate policy. If the manager at this store doesn't know what the corp policy is, tell her to call Bentonville.

Better yet, send a letter to Wal-Mart corporate and have them send you the policy on their letterhead and carry a copy with you into the store (while open carrying of course). Their address is:

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
702 SW 8th Street
Bentonville, Arkansas 72716-8611
 

ufcfanvt

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NoVA, Virginia, USA
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Maybe the body language indicated otherwise, but both the SE and the manager didn't sound very friendly or professional to me.
I'll go check this out myself by the end of this weekend.
I'm not pushing any blame on you based on the answer to this question: What were you wearing that day?
 
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