Armed Security (retail variety)
originally posted at Grumblebear
There’s a disturbing story by Linda Milazzo at AlterNet relating her near-fatal encounter with an armed Brinks guard at her local Albertson’s store in California. She nearly bumped into the guard as she was on her way into the store as he was coming out with his gun in his hand, pointing approximately stomach-height at whatever and whoever happened to be in its line of sight.
California law allows licensed security guards to carry their weapons unholstered only in high-risk situations, and even then the gun must be pointed at the ground in the absence of immediate armed threat.
The comments section is at least as unsettling as the story itself. I had no idea there were so many libertarian assholes out there. Yes, the majority of the commenters were as outraged as the author by the behavior of the guard and the indifference of the Albertson’s manager to her complaint. But there were also plenty like this:
You obviously weren’t looking where you were going. Just because you live in some tony suburb of L.A. doesn’t mean you’re immune to danger, in fact I wonder when the truly poor will start amassing in the neighborhoods of the truly wealthy instead of slaughtering each other. It’s L.A., for crying out loud.
or this gem titled “Come On”
Oh gosh, someone pointed a gun at you! Oh heavens! Not that! You must have PTSD! How awful! Sue them! Sue! Sue! Sue!
I don’t patronize businesses that employ armed guards. And I make a point of telling the manager why: Any business that believes that its money is more important than my life is not for me.
I’d never thought about this issue until Menard’s (a midwest based version of Lowes or Home Depot) opened its first store in my town.
They had two armed guards in the store and another on the exit gate from their lumber yard. I didn’t think a whole lot about it until I purchased some stuff that I had to drive into the lumber yard to load into my back seat.
When I got to the gate to exit, the guard stepped out of his booth, checked my receipt and looked at the merchandise in the back seat. Fine so far. Then, he asked me to open my trunk. I refused, and the SOB put his hand on the butt of his gun! I told him that if he removed the gun from the holster I was going to call 911 (cellphone in hand).
He backed down on the gun, but he refused to open the gate until I opened the trunk, and I refused to open the trunk. We sat there for about 10 minutes with cars and trucks lined up behind me honking their horns.
Eventually a minor manager came out, and I explained Illinois law to him. The gate was opened (but not the trunk) and I drove to the front of the store, parked, and went inside where I explained to the general manager that I would never shop there again and why.
I’d like to say that I’ve never been back, but it’s not true. Since friends have told me that the armed guards were removed, I’ve popped in for the occasional sale item or when there was something I couldn’t find elsewhere.* On the other hand, I made my point with the manager, and who knows? Maybe my bitching about it contributed to Menard’s deciding to remove the armed guards from their stupid “home” store.
Since that experience, when I see an armed guard in a store, I find the manager, explain that I don’t do business with companies that believe their money is more important than my life, and leave.
Call me a crank, but the odds on there being random flying bullets in a place where there’s already an armed guard is one hell of a lot greater than when there isn’t, and it’s not a risk I care to take for myself or my family.
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*My little town, Champaign, Illinois, has got to be one of the most frustrating mid-sized towns in the world to buy building supplies. Our Home Depot is too small to be useful, and our Lowe’s is so badly managed that half the time they’re not only out of the item I’m looking for, but it can take as long as three or four months for it to come back into stock. (We also have the world’s worst Target store — for the same reason).
Comment by Joshua on 1 January 2009 at 11:14 pm:
Stu – This is an interesting tactic, but it would be more effective on a macro level, if you could get more like-minded folks to do the same. Start a movement.
Some would argue that the armed guards are there to protect customers, and because the business values your life. It’s possible that some business owners believe, though you and I would disagree, that the presence of an armed guard makes their customers safer. If your reason for not shopping there is related to your perception of the store owners motive re: valuing the life of the customer, would it matter to you if the store owner subjectively believed that the security guards made their customers more safe?
Comment by John Bambenek on 2 January 2009 at 8:06 am:
Do you not use banks or airlines then? :)
I do think its rather silly for Menards to have armed guards, but guards who don’t know how to use their weapons are far worse. Pointing you gun at someone is the international sign for “I’m going to kill you now”… Its basic gun safety 101. Don’t point you weapon at someome unless you intend to shoot them. Whether your target knows where they are going or not. I don’t think I’d frequent a place that had armed guards who didn’t know what they were doing either…
But I suspect the militancy here is more the weapon than the idiocy…
Comment by Stubear on 2 January 2009 at 4:34 pm:
Hey,John! My bank doesn’t have an armed guard — at least not a visible one. As for airports, it’s one of the things I have to put up with if I want to travel internationally. And presumably they are there to protect the traveling public from lunatics who want to blow us up. I’m talking about retail stores where the only possible reason for an armed guard is to protect the owner’s property from theft.
As for it being the weapons or the idiocy of the persons waving them around, for me personally it’s a toss up. I’m sure there are such critters as well trained, psychologically stable rent-a-cops with the experience and temperament and judgment to perform professionally and safely. On the other hand, the kid who was going to pull his weapon on me because I refused to let him search my car and the clown in California who was waving his pistol around in front of Albertson’s have no business anywhere around a lethal weapon and until the security industry raises its employment standards I’m not going to be comfortable in any retail store that uses them. I figure the chances of bullets flying in random directions with either of those idiots “guarding” the store with a gun are one hell of a lot higher than if the same idiot was present but unarmed.
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