This came up last night. I was at a mall with the family. There are a handful of stores there that we shop and one was having good sales and we needed some things. We go to this mall maybe a half dozen times a year. There was a person shot outside an Apple store several months back.
Signs don’t carry the weight of law in this state. I am legal to carry there.
The anchor stores do not have no gun signs at the entrances. The mall entrances have a no guns sign and there is a sign somewhere that says they have gun sniffing dogs. This is unarmed mall security, not LEO’s with dogs.
It’s funny because we were at this same mall earlier this summer. I was carrying, tactical pen in my breast pocket, folding knife clipped to a pants pocket, and a flashlight clipped to another pocket and spare magazine weighing down a cargo pants pocket. The Apple store (where the shooting was) at this mall had apparently hired a couple of security guards. Two big dudes that were in tactical looking cargo pants, black polo shirts, tactical looking shoes, and looked the part of former military or LEO. I walked right past them into the store and didn’t seem to get a second glance. Seems like if you were looking for a guy with a gun and if you had any situational awareness you’d give the guy with all those metal clips on his pockets a second glance? I try to be discrete, but seems to those in the know, I would have sent some signals? Either that or they figured I was legit?
Back to last night… The wife and daughter were shopping in an anchor store. My son and I were finished so we decided to get some steps in and walk. I told my son about the dogs and said if we see one we will be taking a hard turn into a store or doing a 180. I told him to pay attention because I would just make a turn and wouldn’t say anything to him. I’ve never seen a mall security guard go into a store, they are just in the common areas. That makes me wonder if they have “jurisdiction” in the individual stores?
Anyway, sure enough, we see two security guards walking towards us with a dog. I simply made a U turn and went back the way we came. (My son picked up on it pretty quickly.) We walked out of the mall, around part of the outside of the mall and back in via another anchor store. We never saw the guards or the dog again.
This leaves me with two questions for anyone who might know.
First, any idea how far away these dogs can smell a gun? I assume it has something to do with how “smelly” the gun is. I.e., if it’s been cleaned recently, etc. I was probably 40 feet from this dog when I saw it. I pulled a U turn within a second or two of seeing the dog so I have no idea if it reacted or not, but I assume it can’t smell something from that far away? If I were simply passing them from as far away as you can get in those wide mall hallways would that be far enough? I also wondered about ducking into a smelly store like a candle store or a Bath and Body Works where everything smells. Does that disrupt the dog’s sensors at all? I know those dogs can be really good, so I’m guessing that wouldn’t necessarily make a difference. But I wondered about a couple of well-placed sprays of sample cologne.
Second, anyone ever actually have an interaction with a non-LEO security guard over an issue like this? This incident made me role play what I would say or do under the circumstances. I am inclined to think I would simply walk away or keep walking and walk all the way to my vehicle and leave. Initially take a passive aggressive approach and see how it goes and improvise from there. I don’t know how these dogs react (don’t some just sit down and others bark?). I can’t imagine theses mall security guards could actually put hands on me and restrain me if I am just walking and the “dog alarm” goes off. I can’t imagine they could release the dog on me and have the dog restrain me. If I had an interaction with them, I would simply comply and explain that I am licensed to carry and that there were no signs at the entrance through which I came (I always go in through an anchor store for this reason.) I would comply with their request to leave. I would then figure out how to connect with my wife and daughter later.