Stop the Madness: Radical Gun Owners Bringing Weapons Into Starbucks
WASHINGTON --- Radical gun enthusiasts have begun parading into California restaurants and coffeehouses in recent weeks brazenly displaying handguns. The gun activists have frightened customers, alarmed police and caused at least two restaurant chains to establish firm policies prohibiting firearms in their retail locations.
Ten days ago, gun violence opponents in California started urging a third chain, Starbucks, to similarly prohibit the “open carry” of firearms in its retail establishments, but Starbucks has rebuffed their requests. Today, the national Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence joins with its chapter leaders in California and across the nation in urging the Starbucks Coffee Company to bar the carrying of firearms in its shops.
Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign, today sent a letter to Howard Schultz, the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Starbucks Coffee Company, asking him to change their policy. “I am writing to urge you to reverse Starbucks’ current policy allowing persons to carry guns, both openly and concealed, into your stores,” Helmke wrote. “On behalf of the Brady Campaign and its chapters across the country, I ask you to consider the rights of the vast majority of your customers to bring their families, including their children, into your stores without being confronted with the threatening presence of open-displayed guns.”
Just after New Years Day, gun enthusiasts began targeting restaurants for meetings, carrying their handguns out in the open, strapped to their hips. These gatherings follow last year’s activities by radical gun-toters who targeted Presidential appearances while openly carrying firearms.
After the California gatherings began, executives with Peet’s Coffee and Tea and California Pizza Kitchen announced they would exercise their private property right to prohibit the “open carry” of guns in retail locations.
In response to inquiries about its policy, however, Starbucks’ Customer Relations Department stated that “Starbucks does not have a corporate policy regarding customers and weapons; we defer to federal, state and local laws and regulations regarding this issue.”
“This is an evasion, not a response,” Helmke wrote to the Starbucks CEO. “The law in California and other states gives businesses the right to bar guns on their premises. Just as your stores may prohibit entry by people who are not wearing shoes, they may prohibit entry by people carrying guns.”
The open display of firearms in public places is inherently threatening and intimidating, and poses risks to those nearby, to law enforcement and to the community. When open carrying of guns has occurred in retail stores, other customers understandably become alarmed and the police often are called to the scene, creating a volatile and potentially dangerous situation. One Sheriff’s Lieutenant in California said when police respond to a “man with a gun” call, they have no idea what the intentions of the gun carrier may be and “the result could be deadly.”
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This merely shows that the 911 operators need to learn to ask the right questions, Questions, like was the gun in a holster? Was it being brandished in a threatening fashion? Have shots been fired ?
If the work in a LEGAL OPEN CARRY state, officers need to know the laws concerning this issue, and respect the rights of Americans to exercise their Second Amendment Rights, and God-given right to self-defense .
I feel blessed to live in an OPEN CARRY state, MICHIGAN, and rarely if ever leave the house without my sidearm. I have a concealed pistol license, take classes to stay up to date on the law , practice with my gun on a regular basis to stay proficient in it's use.
I also carry openly in warmer weather when wearing concealment garments is to hot and impractical. More importantly, because I can! I have never had one complaint, nor had people looking frightened in any way as a result of this. If any thing, I have had people actually ask me about open carry , and the laws. It's a case of being uniformed and unaware that Concealed carry is not the only option in Michigan. In the past I have taught Hunter Safety courses, and shared with my students and their families that open carry is not limited to field carry, as long as you are of legal age to do so.
I have owned and used firearms for more than 40 years, and have never fired my gun in anger or needed to use it for self defense . However, I have carried a gun on my hip for several years, mostly for the same reason I have insurance and a spare tire for my car. I pray I never actually need it, but I'm prepared to use it if needed. Like any tool, just having it is not enough, you must know how to use it properly, and train with it so you are competent to use it, if needed.
Gun control is only about controlling others choices, and does nothing to stop or control criminals, they do not follow the laws anyhow.
Hey,
I hear they're also allowing freedom of speech there two! Last I heard, the pen was mightier than the sword so that could be really dangerous.
In the meantime, barkeep pass me a latte and do you have any ammo for my Colt. 45?
Stop the madness?? Radical gun owners?? Where the heck have you people been for the past two decades.? There are now 48 states that now have concealed carry and in those jurisdictions, gun crimes and gun accidents are down. They are still high only in those areas that still practice draconian gun control according to the Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice.
State Law Enforcement 1988-2004, Operation Iraqi Freedom 2006-2007, Teacher 2010-Present, NRA Member -Life
...are not pro-gun-violence. The wording of the article disgusts me, really. It implies that gun owners want to see gun violence take place. I carry into Starbucks. If they banned concealed carry ? I'd just go somewhere else. It's just that easy.
Criminals won't obey the ban , though. So as a head's up, might want to get the staff some kevlar.
On OP, there are usually both sides to an issue who post responses. However, gun rights is one that differs. You may find a normal ratio of maybe 2:1 in other discussions, yet on guns you find at least a 10:1. I wonder why? Could it be that those who support gun control , all 5 of them, don't want to make bigger fools of themselves than the Brady Bunch do?
I think it's because many of us have purposefully (or unconsciously) joined Tom Gresham's Truth Squad...we will let no lie go unchallenged. So, many of us roam the net looking for lies to squash.
This is America. We have rights. One of those rights is private enterprises get to decide what restrictions going beyond national and state level laws, if any, they want to put on people entering their property.
The Brady Campaign has the right to "urge", but if they can't understand that Starbucks letting people exercise their rights in their stores isn't anything strange, then they have just shown us, yet again, how completely and irrevocably asinine they are.
Property owners are within their rights to deny weapons being carried at their businesses. I totally agree with that statement. However, I am not forced to do business with them. I can go over to Dunkin and get a much better-tasting brew.
I'm a coffee drinker who occasionally settles for Starbucks. For the most-part their coffee tastes burnt, like they over-roasted it. If they banned concealed carry it would just be one more reason to avoid the place. Really not a big deal.
Our rights can be made alienable by the establishments, but there will always be a willing establishment who wants to pick up the business hoplophobic establishments lost.
RE: "Property owners are within their rights to deny weapons being carried at their businesses."
I disagree. Private property owners, yes. You can discriminate against anyone you like when it comes to who you allow into your home and who you don't. As an operator of a business, with an open inventation to the general public, the general public does not lose it's rights when they walk through your door. Among other considerations, none of these outfits have any problem with a police officer walking in, armed to the teeth - bludgons, chemical weapons, electrocution devices, body armor, and, of course, firearms , you name it. Being a business owner does not give you the right to hang up a sign that says, "We don't serve niggers here.". (Pardon my use of a reprehensible example of past wrongs. It is not intended to offend, but to illustrate.) If a busniess owner's personal prejudices make him incapable of extentending normal courtesies to the community as a whole, he shouldn't be in business in the first place.
The practice contains a presumption that any person who choses to exercise his or her right to bear arms is a criminal. It is worthy of note that our country's founders made the right to keep and bear arms second only to the right to speak freely, assemble, petition for redress of government wrongs and to practice one's faith unmolested. For all practical purposes, the Second guards the First. You don't lose it when you want a cup of coffee.
The second amendment to the US constitution referred to the People's right to maintain a standing army. It was not meant that every yahoo and redneck can go around strapped and packing heat. Aside from hunting and target shooting , nobody should have a gun on their person, and NOBODY should own or use a handgun. Here in Canada, it is a criminal offense to discharge ANY firearm within 300 meters of human habitation. Rifles are legal here, but not handguns. The US has the highest murder rate in the western world thanks to guns , especially handguns. It's time the American people stood up to the bully conservatives and militia groups and demanded an end to the handgun madness.