H-E-B grocers in Texas have put signage on their doors barring openly carried handguns, while Kroger says they will simply abide by the new law which will allow openly carried handguns, beginning January 1.
According to Forbes, H-E-B has put up signs to let customers know they will not be allowing openly carried handguns once they become legal. The signs say:
Pursuant to Section 30.07, Penal Code (trespass by license holder with an openly carried handgun), a person licensed under Subchapter H, Chapter 411, Government Code (handgun licensing law), may not enter this property with a handgun that is carried openly.
H-E-B is owned by Charles Butt & family and has over 300 stores in Texas. They “issued no public statement on [the] decision to disallow open carry — one that is entirely legal for a private business, as long as compliant signage is displayed.” They will continue to allow concealed carry handguns in their stores.
Whole Foods and Randall’s grocers have announced that they are also barring openly carried handguns in Texas.
Then there is Kroger, which has long refused to cave to gun control groups like Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, who began pressuring the grocery chain to ban openly carried handguns in stores nationwide in August 2014. During a March 25, 2015, appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Kroger CFO Michael Schlotman said Kroger had no intention of caving to the demands of Moms Demand and would instead continue to abide by local and state laws on guns.
During the CNBC appearance, Schlotman referenced Moms Demand, then said:
They were opposed to the fact that our policy is to adhere to the local gun laws. If the local gun laws are to allow open carry, we’ll certainly allow customers to do that based on what the local laws are. We don’t believe it’s up to us to legislate what the local gun control laws should be. It’s up to the local legislators to decide to do that.
So we follow local laws [and] we ask our customers to be respectful to the other people they are shopping with. And we really haven’t had any issues inside of our stores as a result of that.
When Texas law changes to allow the open carry of handguns on January 1, Kroger will simply comply with that.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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