This is what I was getting at, and it is a possible moral issue as well as a legal one, as I'll explain at the bottom of this post. If you don't know the policy, not having been given written notice that—as a member—your gun is not welcome in the store, then you are good to go.JP171 wrote:I think you are incorrect, they may not be able to have you arrested but they can cancel your membership and ask you to leave, if you then refuse then enjoy the ride. They have given you effective notice as a "MEMBER" that they do want you to carry a weapon into the store and can cancel your membership, that's all that is up for grabs here the membership. if they post 30:06 on your membership application as per Texas law for criminal trespass by a concealed handgun license holder then you not only get your membership canceled but you get to go to jail. so you have ben given notice that you are not by the membership agreement to carry into a Costco and will loose your membership if you are caught, you have not been given effective notice of criminal trespass by a CHL until they tell you to leave because they don't want a gun in the storeJaguar wrote:No, you have not - at least in Texas.The Annoyed Man wrote:Have you now been served with an official notice if you are a member?
Conversely, nobody compels you to join Costco. You do so at will, and for their part, they grant you membership at will. There's no law that says they have to continue to honor you membership if you violate their rules. Either party may terminate the relationship at will. Furthermore, you cannot enter their store unless you are either A) a member, B) become a member immediately upon entering, or C) are accompanied by a member. So by entering as either a member or as the guest of a member, your agreement to abide by the rules of membership is implicit.
So when I asked in my original question, "[h]ave you now been served with an official notice [by virtue of having received an emailed clarification of the policy from a duly constituted representative of Costco] if you are a member," I wasn't referring to any legal status in terms of violating 30.06 or 30.05. Instead, I was speaking to things like employee handbooks which include anti-gun language which is neither a duplicate of 30.06 or 30.05, and yet they have force of law when it comes to terminating your employment—because employment is a voluntary relationship requiring the participation of both parties. That policy can say nothing more than "XYZ Corporation does not allow any of its employees to possess any kind of firearm, for any kind of reason, on the company premises, or in its vehicles, during work hours; and if you are found in possession, you will be terminated on the spot." Even though that language is not compliant with any signage law, that language is valid in determining your continued employment, and it does serve as a written notice that a company will fire you if you violate their rule. Any voluntary relationship can be so delimited, and if either of the parties to the relationship is not satisfied with the terms of the relationship, then that party may terminate the relationship.
Similarly, a company employee with the appropriate authority may tell a visitor to the company once it comes to light that the visitor is carrying a concealed firearm (CHL or not) that the visitor must leave the premises immediately..........and you must leave, or you can then be arrested for trespass. (Yes, concealed is concealed, but accidents do happen, and it is possible that your CHL status could accidentally be revealed. An "unintentional failure to conceal" can still get you thrown out.) The language required for signage is one thing, and it must be compliant because that language is specified in the law. But when you initiate the contact—which is what happens when you email Costco for an official clarification of their policy—it is no longer a matter of signage, but rather a matter of personal communication, and now it could possibly be argued that you've been given effective notice that you may not enter the store armed, and you may possibly have been given that effective notice by someone who is an employee of Costco with the authority to deliver such effective notice.
Please understand in what follows that I am not judging, because I myself am a Costco member, and I carry into my local Costco store....
So now, this is where the moral component comes in, and the issue becomes this: do you pretend (because in plain terms, that is what we are all doing once we've read this thread this far....) that you didn't receive effective notice by hiding behind the anonymity of your email address; or do you acknowledge that you actually may have received effective notice and honor their policy of no admittance while armed? It gets worse..... by having posted that emailed official response from Costco here on this forum, have ALL members who have read this thread now been served with effective [written] verbal notice that they may not enter Costco armed? Will anyone here who is a Costco member and who has read all these posts pretend that they can un-read the one with the email from Costco, hide behind their Internet anonymity, and go ahead and carry into Costco anyway?
And here is a fine bit of rationalization: since A) that Costco email was sent to an anonymous email and the sender had no idea of who the recipient actually was and whether or not the recipient was a member; and B) I don't really know if the person who sent the Costco reply actually had the authority to speak on behalf of Costco; and C) since it wasn't sent to me personally; I'll proceed on the notion that I have not received effective notice and I will probably continue to carry into Costco......at least as long as I continue to maintain my membership, which is an answer that is up for grabs because I rarely shop there anyway, so I don't know what I'd be missing out on if I didn't renew it.........unless it is those really big and cheap bags of beef jerky. Mmmmmmmmm.....
Edited to add: As far as buying or not buying based on the ideological preferences of my vendor, I couldn't make my living if I did that. The Internet is my medium, and it is dominated by large companies with very liberal values. I couldn't stay in business if I let that be the determiner of my spending dollar. And I certainly don't care about a customer's ideology. I won't build a website that violates my most basic personal moral code. I wouldn't build a website for an abortionist or a pornographer, but whether or not the accountant or jewelry seller whose site I am building is a democrat or a republican (or a libertarian) does not enter into my decision making in whether to take them on as a customer. I have a limited income, so price does matter to me because I'm called to be a good steward of my finances. The co-founder of Costco may be a flaming liberal commie rat, but that doesn't mean that the 107,200 full and part time Costco employees (source) share in that ideology. In fact, probably a lot of them don't. Should I punish them too?
