I've never been in a Starbucks, but the last time I was in a Target store (admittedly a long time ago) there was no "no guns" signs at the door.Watson and her mother, Charlotte Stallard, filed a civil lawsuit against Kroger last week asking the chain to ban guns in its stores. "Who would have known that Kroger would allow people to just walk in, carry their guns on their waistband and just pull them out?" she said.
Currently, Kroger does not have a policy prohibiting customers from bringing firearms into their stores. The company released a statement on its website stating that their longstanding policy on the issue is to follow state and local gun laws and to ask customers to be respectful of others while shopping.
"You don't need a gun to buy groceries," said Ron Johnson, the Stallard family's attorney. "…You can't carry a gun into your school, you can't carry a gun into the courthouse… And what we're simply saying is grocery stores need to do the same thing."
The alleged gunman, Gregory Alan Bush, was indicted by a federal grand jury for hate crimes. This October, a judge will determine if Bush is mentally competent to stand trial.
Speaking about her father, Watson said, "To think that this man, as loving and caring as he was, to have been taken from us in the way that he was taken, because of someone else's hate… it's unbelievable at times."
The lawsuit details more than two dozen gun-related incidents resulting in eight deaths inside and outside of Kroger stores nationwide.
"The duty of a store in Kentucky is to provide a safe place to shop. That is the law," Johnson said. "So retailers like Target and Starbucks have said, 'Having guns in our stores is not consistent with having a safe place to shop,' so they don't allow guns."
"Can a judge force an entity like Kroger to change its policy?" asked "CBS This Morning" national correspondent Jericka Duncan.
"All a judge or a jury can do is give damages to those who are harmed when Kroger doesn't meet its duty," Johnson said.
Watson said she hopes her lawsuit will help make public spaces safer and keep other families from suffering similar losses. "It is traumatic. It is violent. It is dramatic. It is painful…" she said. "We have to do something to try to prevent these things from happening again to others."
I'm not familiar with Kentucky law, but are they similar to Ohio, in that you can't sue a business if they choose to have a "no guns for the law abiding" sign or not have one? And I don't recall the shooter having a CHL anyway. Murder is already against the law.
If Kentucky doesn't have a law and Krogers can technically be sued, why can't someone sue a business that has a "no guns for the law abiding" sign if a mass shooting occurs there? As far as the comment that guns in stores is not consistent with having a safe place to shop, the documented facts are exactly the opposite. Most mass shootings occur in so called gun free zones. Plus, there is documented evidence from some mass shooters or attempted mass shooters that they chose their targets precis ally because the location was a "soft target". A "no guns for the law abiding sign" could be said to create the conditions or environment for a mass shooter to succeed and therefore makes people potentially less safe.
It would be just as effective as a no guns sign.
