Tennessee Firearms Assoc. Inc.

Their inconspicuous sign is posted to the right of the side door, not on the door itself, and the lettering is so small I had to wear my reading glasses to read it. Frankly, I would have missed the sign if I hadn't looked closely for one. The sign is so inconspicuous and easy to miss I wonder what it's real purpose is. Is it to keep HCP holders from carrying firearms inside, which many of us will not see, or to really allow us in while satisfying something like an insurance provision or providing a liability waiver?

The new law AND the one it replaced concerning the posting provisions specifically states that posting your property does not remove any liability. Now whether or not an insurance carrier may offer some consideration if a client posts the insured property, I can't answer but the law does not offer any protection, at least the way I read it, but then again, I am not a lawyer.

As for the size and location of the sign, I can only speculate on why they do it the way they do. I believe some insight may be found in the communication that came from The Tennessee Restaurant Association president during the debates last year over this legislation. He said, and this is a paraphrase, their members did not want to post that sign. They felt it was negative. He said that the posting law required their members to choose which part of their clientle they wanted to alienate.

The bottom line, in my opinion, is they just don't want to post that sign. They were perfectly happy to hide behind state law and point the finger at the state for why a person couldn't carry in their establishment. Now they are forced to put up a sign for all to see that communicates where they stand and they don't like it.

So the end result is that some places will choose to put up a sign, but it will often be small and not right in front of you when you go in, you will have to look for it. Also in my opinion, this should not be allowed. If there is a prohibition against anything inside any given establishment, it should be PLAINLY posted. They don't have a problem putting up signs that say "NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO SERVICE", so what's the problem with the no weapons signs if that's what they want?