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Still at it... more Starbucks lies

TFred

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Column needs some rebutting. Henigan is calling law-abiding citizens a threat to employee safety.

TFred

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/starbucks-and-guns-open-danger-concealed-danger

Starbucks and Guns: Open Danger, Concealed Danger
Opinion by Brady Campaign

By Dennis Henigan

As thousands of concerned citizens continue to sign the Brady Campaign’s petition calling on Starbucks to change its policy allowing customers with guns into its stores (as of this writing, up to 33,000 and counting), there have been two particularly revealing responses to the controversy: one from Starbucks and the other from leading “gun rights” supporters.

Starbucks became embroiled in the gun controversy when it responded to gatherings of “gun rights” activists in its stores, carrying highly visible guns strapped to their hips, by refusing to adopt a “no guns” policy, as had California Pizza Kitchen and other similarly targeted retail chains. Starbucks recently issued a statement defending its policy by citing concern for the safety of its employees. To prohibit the open carry of guns in its stores, says Starbucks, “we would be forced to require our partners [employees] to ask law abiding customers to leave our stores, putting our partners in an unfair and potentially unsafe position.”

Of course, that raises this question: Why would it be “potentially unsafe” to ask “law abiding customers” to leave because they are violating company policy? Starbucks seems to be saying that, if its employees asked the gun-toters to leave, some of these “law abiding customers” would respond by creating a threat to employee safety. Is this not an admission by Starbucks that it currently is allowing armed and potentially dangerous people into its stores? Plus, it is surely self-contradictory to label the gun-toters “law abiding customers” while, in the same sentence, suggesting that, if asked to leave, some of these same customers would resist the request, thereby violating trespass laws? These “law abiding customers” don’t sound very law abiding to me.

Ironically, Starbucks’ management seems to share the safety concerns of its many customers who feel threatened by the well-armed people who now have a home in the company’s coffee houses. But the company has concluded that it must tolerate armed and potentially dangerous people in its stores because it would be more dangerous to ask them to leave. Does Starbucks really believe there is no way it can maintain a “no guns” policy without endangering its baristas?

I suggest that it take a page from its competitor, Peet’s Coffee & Tea. When Peet’s also was confronted with the prospect of meetings of the “open carry” crowd in its stores, it immediately announced a “no guns” policy, said it would post signs to that effect in its stores, and added that “in the event a customer enters the store displaying a firearm and is not a uniformed law enforcement officer, we have instructed our store management teams to immediately call their local police department for assistance.” Peet’s figured out a way to protect the comfort and safety of its customers without endangering its employees; that is, by relying on law enforcement. Why can’t Starbucks do the same?

The other revealing reaction – from leaders of the “gun rights” movement – is to suggest that the “open carry” people may be hurting the gun rights cause. For example, Bob Barr, my erstwhile debate opponent when he was in Congress, recently suggested that “firearms advocates might be better advised not to press the issue publicly by pointedly visiting Starbucks establishments with firearms openly displayed. Sometimes quiet advocacy speaks louder than waving a red flag in someone’s face.” Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation (generally considered more extreme than the NRA) told The New York Times, “I’m all for open-carry laws. But I don’t think flaunting it is very productive for our cause. It just scares people.”

Both Barr and Gottlieb are strong proponents of the “more guns, less crime” ideology – the idea that the more guns there are in homes, and in public places, the safer those places will be because criminals will be deterred from attacking when armed, law abiding citizens are present to resist. It is, therefore, surprising for them to take a dim view of the open carrying of guns. According to their “more guns, less crime” logic, locations where open carry occurs should be the safest of all, because criminals will have no doubt that their attacks likely will be met by armed resistance. At the very least, the Barr/Gottlieb comments concede that other Starbucks customers do not share their confidence in the public safety benefits of open carry. Instead, as Gottlieb says, open carry “just scares people.”

Implicitly, Barr and Gottlieb are advising gun owners who want to carry guns in public to keep them concealed from view; that is, make sure the danger is hidden. Perhaps this exposes their real concern about the open carry movement – that it eventually will cause a surge in public concern about the far more prevalent concealed carrying of guns made possible by the gun lobby-supported “shall-issue” laws passed in most states during the last two decades making it far easier to obtain licenses to carry concealed weapons. They also likely fear that open carry may intensify public opposition to recent efforts to gradually expand the locations in which concealed carry may occur –such as parks, bars, college campuses, even airports. After all, it’s not the “openness” of open carry that scares people – it’s the presence of the guns themselves and the inherent danger they entail. The only reason there is not an equivalent reaction to concealed carry is that the danger is, by definition, hidden from view.

The evidence is overwhelming that the “shall-issue” concealed carry laws have been a disaster for public safety. They have allowed dangerous people to obtain concealed carry licenses, those people have committed grievous crimes, and the scholarly research shows that the laws generally have been “associated with uniform increases in crime.” But the danger becomes evident to the public only episodically – when someone with a concealed carry license shoots someone accidentally or commits a violent act, such as the six multiple shootings committed by concealed carry licensees in 2009 alone. What if concealed carry licensees had to reveal they were packing whenever they entered Starbucks or other public places? The debate over guns in public would be far different.

“Gun rights” advocates like Barr and Gottlieb have good reason to fear that their “guns anywhere” agenda would be threatened if the open carry movement starts causing the public to understand the true danger of guns in public – the open danger, and the concealed danger as well.
 

Huck

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Y'know, every time i read the swill that spews from Henigan's (and Helmke's) mouth I cant help thinking that they're biological wonders, creatures with a anus at both ends.
 

REX681959

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The evidence is overwhelming that the “shall-issue” concealed carry laws have been a disaster for public safety. They have allowed dangerous people to obtain concealed carry licenses, those people have committed grievous crimes, and the scholarly research shows that the laws generally have been “associated with uniform increases in crime.” But the danger becomes evident to the public only episodically – when someone with a concealed carry license shoots someone accidentally or commits a violent act, such as the six multiple shootings committed by concealed carry licensees in 2009 alone. What if concealed carry licensees had to reveal they were packing whenever they entered Starbucks or other public places? The debate over guns in public would be far different.


Holy smokes there were 6 people in the US that hada CC permit & a crime in 2009 alone !!!!! Man what is the world coming to. That's got to be at least a crime rate of .000000000000000000001% . :what::what::what:
 

TFred

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Now here is a much better column... the "opposing view" to the first one linked here.

Some very good sound bites included, highlighted in the text below.

TFred

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/true-colors-why-can-t-brady-campaign-get-starbucks-gun-policy

True Colors: Why Can't Brady Campaign Get Starbucks' Gun Policy?
Opinion by thebigmike
in Society / Guns

For quite some time now, I have tried to understand why The Brady Campaign insists on picking a fight with Starbucks over something that should not be a big issue. The claim found at the bottom of this latest article describes the Campaign as seeking “to enact and enforce sensible gun laws, regulations and public policies” and I have long failed to see how that goal is not accomplished here.

We have two coffee houses, Peet’s Coffee and Starbucks, each with a different policy about customers carrying guns. Now, it seems sensible to me that those customers who feel that Peet’s no-gun policy creates a safer environment would buy their coffee there, those who felt that Starbucks had the right idea would buy their coffee there, and everyone who didn’t care either way would probably go to whichever was closer. This not only seems sensible to me, but it seems just: private property owners have the right to restrict what is allowed on their premises.

Moreover, I find Starbucks differentiating between what customers and employees are allowed to do reasonable. Employees are allowed to take orders, customers are not. Customers are allowed to leave whenever they please, employees must wait for the end of their shift. The idea that the privileges and responsibilities of customers and employees are different is rather obvious.

I would understand Brady asking Starbucks to change, and even telling everyone who would listen to avoid their locations until there is a policy change, but once the policy has been decided, why keep discussing it and pressuring? It seems to me that the argument “they would also be complying with the law if they did what we say” flies right in the face of a property owner’s rights.

The question becomes, if the law leaves the decision up to Starbucks, and there is a reasonable alternative, why push so hard? The answer Brady has consistently come back with is other customers and employees are in danger because of the guns. Despite the obvious point that those other customers and employees must not feel strongly about the issue, or they would be down the road at Peet’s, the question now becomes what about the guns is causing the danger?

This may sound like an elementary question quickly answered “someone could get shot,” but if that is the sum total of the danger, then Brady should be pushing for a ban on all guns. We allow these people to keep the guns in their home, where they are obviously still capable of shooting. How is Starbucks different from the owner’s home?

A Starbucks location probably has more people, but then the question is no longer about complying with an existing law, it is about writing a new one that prohibits guns from locations that are frequented by more than a certain number of people per day. A Starbucks location also puts a gun owner in contact with more strangers than would be in the average home, yet once again we’re no longer talking about an existing law, but one that prohibits a gun owner from meeting new people.

So, I pose the question: in terms of safety to those in close proximity, what practical difference is there between a gun in the holster at home, and a gun in the holster at Starbucks? In both locations the gun could be accidentally or intentionally fired causing injury or death. In both locations a property owner has made a decision about what is allowed on their privately owned property.

This is where it gets really interesting. Remember that statement about Brady wanting sensible laws? They have a law on the books, one that allows informed people to make decisions about their own safety. So why aren’t they satisfied with a business that they admit is complying with the law? The only conclusion I can draw is that Brady does not feel that a law allowing decisions about guns on private property up to the property owner is sensible. Brady’s true colors are showing. For years I heard some of my more extreme friends swear that the Brady Campaign and their allies were not just after gun control increases that we felt did not prevent crime, but had the long term goal of ending private gun ownership. Until now I disagreed, yet the proof is before us: they have taken the stance that decisions about guns on private property cannot be left up to the property owner, and decisions about coming in contact with guns cannot be left up to individual citizens. If they do not respect a business owner’s property rights, why would they respect my rights as a home owner?

In the same way that people are free to avoid my house because I keep firearms, they are free to avoid Starbucks. If the Brady Campaign was sure of its position, they would be focused on getting people to avoid Starbucks. If they feel that people cannot make an informed decision on where to get a cup of coffee, how can they feel people can be trusted with gun questions in the home? The intrusion into private property has started, and I apologize profusely to everyone I rolled my eyes at when they said Brady was coming for the shotgun under my bed.
 

Alexcabbie

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Hokey smokes. Tell you what, I have a 2001 Crown Vic. Pretty weighty car. Should I decide to go nuts and kill a bunch of people - hell, if I should blow a tire and jump the curb into a family - heck, if some jack-ball plowed into me and sent me spinning into a crosswalk - it would wreak just as much mayhem or more as a madman with a firearm or an AD or ND in a Starbucks.

Yet trusting souls of all walks of life see the "walk" signal and just blithely step into the crosswalk, not giving a care about my approaching vehicle, trusting me to stop at the red light. OH GAWD WHAT IF HE DOESNT!!:what:OH MY GOD THAT'S A TON AND A HALF OF STEEL WE'RE ALL DEAD OH MY GOD! Strangely, nobody but a lunatic acts that way.

But some folks, if a LAC with a pistol on his hip holds the door for them, gasp and scurry out, shielding their kids with their bodies and giving frightened looks at what is essentially a defense tool which, BTW the LACs hands are nowhere near.

Those folks are the Bradyite's natural audience.

I am not about to try it, but I do believe if there was a contest between a guy driving a full-sized car and a guy with a firearm to see who could kill the mostest unsuspecting innocent bystanders the fastest, the guy with the vehicle would win hands-down. After all, it's rather hard for uninjured third parties to jump on a driver and take the car away.

And although not every homicidal nutbar has a gun, it's a cinch that almost every one of them has a car. And it is not necessary to intend to kill people with a vehicle; all one need do is drive HUA (Head Up A$$); and lots more people drive HUA than carry weapons in that condition. In fact, I have had people dressed in black or other dark shades step out from between two parked cars into the path of mine. Heck, there are idiots who have tried to hail my cab by jumping in front of it in the middle of the street!!

And yet these very same idiots say they feel "unsafe" when they see someone who is not a cop carrying a firearm on his hip??? Jump in front of a moving vehicle because you need a ride, but fear the presence of some guy who is carrying but is perfectly polite and nice??

Cripes.
 

ixtow

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I dumped my opposing views account. The moderation staff is extremely biased, and their website software screws up and loses posts like mad. It just isn't worth the effort.

Most participants there are complete asshats anyway. It's just another extreme left podium posing as something moderate.
 
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