This is a private property issue. The business owner has the right to set his own rules and you decide if you want to trade there in light of those rules. Let's say the storeowner has a policy of no guns on his business property. You carry a weapon onto the property. He asks you to leave. You refuse & he calls the Sheriff. I think the worst you are guilty of is trespass. If he asks you to leave & you do, you have both made your free choice. If he asks you to leave, you refuse and you take your .45 out & shoot him, you are probably guilty of trespass and injury or death. In any case, if a crime is alleged to have occurred, it is up to a jury to decide.
Posting a policy of no weapons on the premises of a private business is not government force. It is not interfering with your right to bear arms, it simply gives you a choice if you want to trade there or not.
It's not all that different today in Texas. The CCW law passed & it carried a provision that allowed businesses to put up a sign designed in a certain way that prohibited the carrying of arms on that property. Wal-Mart had these signs in their stores all over Texas. Had someone carried a concealed weapon onto the premises, used it in the manner consistent with the law, been cleared of any wrong doing in using the weapon, the charge of carrying in violation of the sign would become moot.
The real issue was whether or not one wanted to go onto the property knowing law-abiding citizens had been disarmed, felons had not. TSRA stated in a letter to Wal-Mart that they were advising their members to stay out of Wal-Mart as it was an unsafe environment. I delivered one of those letters to the Wal-Mart Superstore in Beaumont myself. Three weeks later, following a 17% decline in business, Wal-Mart took the signs down.
Bob Phipps