Tennessee Firearms Assoc. Inc.

I have started to receive information that there is a group or organization that is approaching restaurants face to face with literature and telling them that they are required to post their property. They are selling these restaurants signs that prohibit firearms. There is a possibility that they are representing or "suggesting" that they are government officials and using some degree of pressure to make the restaurant believe, incorrectly, that they have no choice but to post.

Start monitoring for restaurants that have a consistent decal/sign. I want to look into this report and see if we can determine who is behind this and what is being said and by whom. If you see restaurants that you frequent or where you have good relations with the owners/staff, check with them to see if they have been approached. At this point, the only incidents I have been advised of are in Nashville.

John,
I think the answer to my first question is obvious. Misrepresenting themselves or identifying themselves falsly as government officials would be illegal, would it not? Next, could intentionally misinforming a restaurant owner/operator about the provisions of the law be also illegal or considered a criminal act?

I would go so far as to suggest that if or when we do as you suggest, contact establishments we know, take a copy of the new TCA regarding this subject and give it to the owner/manager.

Sam Cooper

I will be contacting the restaurants in the Jackson area, informing them that this attempt at subterfuge is afoot. I will be suggesting that they attempt to obtain names of individuals who endeavor to falsely portray themselves as Government officials.

This may be the group in question I heard about them on the Morning Show & they are very Aggressively going after all restaurants.

Yes, that is them. They clearly can be advocates of their position - however wrong it may be - but the problem we want to investigate is are any of them committing a crime by misrepresenting themselves to be state or local officials (as at least one restaurant has reported) and representing that the "law" requires the merchant to post rather than allowing it.

Hm. They have a database of gun free restaurants...

Any chance we can put our database of freedom loving restaurants up?

Well, depending on how accurate their database is, they are by default, also building a database of gun-friendly places as well aren't they?

It's obviously back on my radar now

Expect something up very, very soon.

I called in and was called number 2. The gentleman before me was also pro freedom. From what I got to hear of the show (im in NE TN so I can’t hear it on the radio) that the guy from the criminal safe zones website kept referencing people’s judgment being impaired and one person that emailed him saying they broke the law all the time. I was on for about 1.5 to 2 minutes and was never interrupted and allowed to make my points. I responded to a few of the statements and/or questions that I heard while on hold and short of my speech breaks feel pretty good about my call and statements.

Two thoughts occur...

One of the best ways hat permit holders can negate the efforts of groups like this is make sure that we don't give our custom to those establishments that make it clear that they don't want or need it (based on their posting against allowing legally carried firearms into their establishments) while concurrently making sure that the owners/managers of these places know, in a non-confrontational way, that we aren't giving them our business and, most importantly why we aren't.

The other thought is simply this...for those of us who dislike this sort of activity; why aren't we out there doing the same kind of restaurant by restaurant personal contact to encourage these establishments to not post (or to take down their signs if they've already posted)?

Let's face it folks, grumbling about it in an internet forum may make us feel better but it almost never changes anything.

While I am completely opposed to the position of this group I have to at least give some grudging admiration to their willingness to put some shoe leather to their position .

The 'disclaimer' listing on their website, is as follows:

"We identify which restaurants post no-gun signs, but cannot verify that customers follow the law."

Sometimes, it just makes me wonder.....

Read the thread and went to the gunsfreediningtennessee.org website (know your enemy...). Their scrolling banner had one of my favorites as "gun free". Joe's Crab shack in Nashville. I sent them an email showing my disappointment with their policy. 10 MINUTES later (!!!), I got a call from the manager - they ARE NOT "gun free", and we're welcome there. I gave him the web address of gunsfreediningtennessee.org and he is going to elevate this up to the corporate level legal dept. He sounded like a straight shooter and wasn't pleased. He said he'd call back with any updates - I'll post the same.

Sorry - was in Germany the last 3 weeks and couldn't check email.

Here's the reply I got on 12 Oct -
They finally pulled us off their site. Thanks again for letting us know. Please tell your people as well.
Jim McGonagle
General Manager
Joe's Crab Shack Nashville
123 2nd Ave South
Nashville, TN 37201
615-242-2722
csnv@joescs.com

Straight up guy, don't know if he went to corporate or not. Wouldn't hesitate to call or email him. I think we need to contact all the establishments on "gunsfreediningtennessee", if I'm that lucky, to pick the only one that was missrepresented, I need to start playing the lottery...

Mike