Mast General Store Bans Guns
A no firearms sign at a down town Knoxville store and their response to an inquiry.
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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August 10th, 2011 at 9:34 am
I note it is the marketing director who responded to his inquiry. I also note the marketing director did not address the personal safety of disarmed shoppers in the face of now-more-likely criminal activity in the stores.
Will Mast accept fully guarantee my safety in their stores in the event of a violent criminal attack while I am shopping there? No? Then they need to rethink the liability they have accepted through denying me a tool for self defense if I enter their stores.
August 10th, 2011 at 10:36 am
I doubt it would be dangerous to go to the Mast downtown unarmed. The Urban Hippies that shop there don’t have enough cash to be targeted by the Goblins, so they will only be after the till, unless linen dresses and hemp jewelry suddenly take on high trade value.
August 10th, 2011 at 10:48 am
“In the event of a robbery, our employees are instructed to comply with the robber’s demands…no life is worth what is in the register or what can be carried out off the floor.”
Agreed. Even if there is a $100,000 in the register, a human life is worth more.
My guess is that management doesn’t consider their employees to be human beings, as management does nothing to protect their lives, and have gone to a measure to prohibit customers from protecting them.
Managers of other stores consider the lives of their employees to have value and allow the humans that work there to defend themselves.
August 10th, 2011 at 11:08 am
They should teach them the “Bird Beak” Technique for dealing with armed robbers.
August 10th, 2011 at 11:13 am
That is why I am glad that I live in a state where signs do not carry the threat of force from the state. I also notice that the base assumption here is the same assumption that cost us 3,500 lives on 9/11:
Just give them what they want, and let the authorities catch them later. The flaw in this logic is in the assumption that all the armed goblin wants is the money in the till. What if what he wants is to kill others?
No thanks. I will live in a state where disobeying a sign will not make me a felon, and I will continue to ignore such signs.
August 10th, 2011 at 11:28 am
What it really shows you how much our tort laws are out of whack. The store has to be aware of the negative backlash. They might lose half their gun carrier customers, lets say for a 10% loss in revenue. They rather take that loss than risk being sued for having allowed guns in the store leading to a shoot-out with a robber, and the store being held responsible for millions in damages. And, since this is a returning subject here and on other blogs, all large corporations get the same advise from their accountants, after marketing tells them what they lose in revenue and legal stats the potential damages.
August 10th, 2011 at 12:13 pm
I wonder what instructions they give their employees if a robber starts rounding them up to take them downstairs to the back room.
August 10th, 2011 at 12:19 pm
Organize a boycott and personal visit/letter writing/phone call campaign and demand that the marketing director be fired as a condition of lifting the boycott. Put an ad in the local paper denouncing the store, and send them copies of gun organization newsletters that have notices of the boycott. Have a demonstration in front of the store during business hours on a Saturday.
Put them out of business! It’s real hard to make a profit in today’s economy. With hostile customers bent on putting the company out of business, it is impossible.
Buy it/break it/return it might not be legal as a strategy, I don’t know, but who’s to say the product wasn’t defective to begin with?
As the saying goes, the customer is always right, if you want to have customers. Get right and put up a fight!
August 10th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Markie Marxist sez: “Ha! We shut down private gun owners with nothing more than a sign! Now, if it was our Marxist/warrior/hero/criminal/looter/arsonists in the UK, they’d strip the staff naked, steal all their personal gear, loot the store, and then burn it to the ground! That’s because our people aren’t wimps – they mean business! Ha! Ha! Gun owners! They might as well be carrying toy guns! Ha! Ha! Our people don’t need guns because they’ve got bollocks! And matches. Ha! Ha!”
August 10th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Maybe if Tennessee law required big, ugly, signs like Texas’ ‘30.06’ sign, there would be less of this type action in TN? (Two languages, 1″ high font, conspicuously displayed.)
.
August 10th, 2011 at 4:17 pm
That’s a shame. I’ve been to the original Mast General Store a number of times, but never since I got my NC concealed carry license, or since it came into being. It’s a cool place. I’ve sat on the back porch drinking an orange Nehi more than a couple of times. Guess that won’t be happening again anytime soon.
The Neo-hippie crowd loves the place, and so their sensibilities will be the once catered to. I have to wonder what the original folk (mountain folk, Scotch-Irish heritage if I had to guess) would think of that customer base?
August 10th, 2011 at 4:50 pm
Life long resident, and first time I ever heard of the place. So much for their marketing strategy. Now that I am aware of them, I will comply, and leave my gun at home; along with my money, and myself.
The General Store at Muddy Pond (near Crossville)welcomes gun owners, and is the real thing, not a hippy fake.
August 11th, 2011 at 6:37 am
If you are looking to replace the outdoors, downstairs section of Mast, Better Half and I recommend Uncle Lem’s Mountain Outfitters, River Sports Outfitters, and Blue Mountain Sports, in that order. None of the three care about law-abiding citizens lawfully exercising their rights.
If you are looking to replace the upstairs “general store” section, about the only thought I have is The Market out in Maryville, who also does not mind law-abiding Tennesseeans lawfully bearing arms.
Mast caters to a narrow niche, but competitors exist, and will be getting my money.