Surprised? Well let me back up and say I went to the soccer game OC. Funny, Charlie left about 20 minutes into the game and let his asst. coach finish up. I guess he had to go defend some criminal. Maybe some drug addict who beat up an old lady or something?
I had a bit of a lengthy talk with Mark Brandt (man who wrote the letter) toward the end of the game. I am still undecided about how I feel about all of that but it felt....I don't know.....relieving? to be able to tell him how I felt personally about what he did. I am referring to the fact that we have always had a close personal and very open relationship and how he just did not ever speak with me about this situation but rather knew exactly what he was doing and went behind my back. I told him I wasn't sure I was comfortable with my children being at his home as I could not be sure he would not undermine them behind my back as the trust has already been broken once. I told him he feels insecure about an inanimate object which he's entitled to feel however he is a human being who is very animated and very capable of influencing my children in any way he chooses essentially. I did tell him I do not want to see our children punished but that I had not made a decision one way or the other at this time. I really needed to think about things. He told me that he had no idea the sheriff made this decision on JUST his letter. He said he did not agree with that and that he could have been some crazy person who just didn't like me and that didn't seem fair at all. (kind of a shame he didn't get to speak in court now that I think about it...LOL) He said if he had it to do over again he would have spoken to me about it. He claims his real issue was with me standing by the kids as he says he has no problem with me carrying at the games in general. I told him while I understand his view I do not agree with it and I reiterated that I do not normally stand by the kids anyway....it's actually against league policey which I had forgotten all about although they don't enforce it with anyone else....I pointed a few other things out to him but I want to get to the stuff that happened at Walmart....
So I just had about 3 things to pick up. Some bagels, few bags of cereal, and something from the frozen section. I grabbed my bagels and as I am headed toward the cereal I see a neighbor of mine...this would be a good friend of Tonya's...(neighbor who posted nasty things about me in the comments). This neighbor happens to the be the one my son took flags from (out of their yard). Anyway, I get my cereal and am heading out of that aisle and to get my last item when I see an asst manager coming to me and he stops me and asks
"ma'am are you carrying a weapon?" I told him yes I was and he asked if I had a concealed carry permit. I told him I have a LTCF. He asked if I was a LEO and I said no I am a private citizen. He told me that some customers were upset and complaining to him and that he was going to have to ask me to leave it in my car to shop. I looked at him and told him that I would just take my business elsewhere and that I am aware that this is not a coporate policey of Walmart so I would be in touch with them regarding this. He told me "well I do have the right to ask you to leave if people are complaining about you" and I said something about how that was fine and I was going and out I went. I was on the phone with Greg so he told me I should secure my firearm in my vehicle and go back in and clarify what the policy was. That is what I did.
I had my digital voice recorder and he refused to allow me to record him.
In short, he told me he had no idea what his rights were....
Ok, he admitted that the other girl in the office at the time was trying to look things up to find out what they could do. He was on the phone with the store manager when I went in and hung up when I went in so we could speak.
He said "well basically I can ask you to leave if someone complains but you can continue to shop and if someone calls the police (he meant a customer) then it's out of my hands. You know how cell phones are." Ok I about fell over when he told me this...he. has. no. clue. I asked him over and over again if it would make a difference if I concealed and he said "well they wouldn't know. You can just put your shirt over it." I gestured to the shirt I had on and he said "well yeah some clothing will not work as well as others..."
I explained that I could point out exactly what customer complained and told him that I have OC'ed in there a million times w/o incident and that people are just harassing me. He said "well they just never noticed it before." I told him they did not notice it today either. They noticed my face and then looked for the gun! He had no idea who I was so I told him. The girl in the office said she only reads/watches the local news and that she would have only heard about me if I was BIG NEWS. I said "um...I was the top news story all over the place yesterday...."
I gave them a brief summary and the manager just could NOT wrap his brain around how in the hell the sheriff could have revoked me. I told him a LOT of people are confused about that which is exactly why I got it back. I said people in the community who are anti-gun are upset and now they are trying to keep me from shopping. He agreed that this was ridiculous but he was of course trying to keep some kind of peace in the store.....he was not telling me that I could never OC in there again. He made that pretty clear too.
So...if anyone ELSE would like to complain...you know, just call and let them know that allowing the antis to dictate this sort of thing is going to irritate far more people....the number is 717-228-1221. Just ask for Tom.
The actual STORE manager will be in tomorrow. (My husband already made one call....)