After months of ranting from anti-Second Amendment bullies who angrily confronted Starbuck’s patrons and associates over their civil liberties, the coffee chain released a statement addressing the issue, bold my emphasis:
We appreciate that there is a highly sensitive balance of rights and responsibilities surrounding America’s gun laws, and we recognize the deep passion for and against the “open carry” laws adopted by many states. (In the United States, “open carry” is the term used for openly carrying a firearm in public.) For years we have listened carefully to input from our customers, partners, community leaders and voices on both sides of this complicated, highly charged issue.
Our company’s longstanding approach to “open carry” has been to follow local laws: we permit it in states where allowed and we prohibit it in states where these laws don’t exist. We have chosen this approach because we believe our store partners should not be put in the uncomfortable position of requiring customers to disarm or leave our stores. We believe that gun policy should be addressed by government and law enforcement—not by Starbucks and our store partners.
Recently, however, we’ve seen the “open carry” debate become increasingly uncivil and, in some cases, even threatening. Pro-gun activists have used our stores as a political stage for media events misleadingly called “Starbucks Appreciation Days” that disingenuously portray Starbucks as a champion of “open carry.” To be clear: we do not want these events in our stores. Some anti-gun activists have also played a role in ratcheting up the rhetoric and friction, including soliciting and confronting our customers and partners.
Anti-Second Amendment bullies fashion themselves as societal vigilantes with a singular purpose of imposing their will on others, regardless if it flies in the face of another law-abiding mother or father’s civil liberties. There were no “Starbucks Appreciation Days” anywhere near my area of residence, but that didn’t stop me and others from visiting our local Starbucks in appreciation. Unless they were open-carrying, no one would know was carrying or not as Missouri is a conceal carry state. Frankly, it’s no one’s business. One of my girlfriends often wears her pistol in a holster clipped to the inside of her pants.
“My body my choice. Keep your hands out of my pants,” she’s fond of saying.
Starbucks’s response to all of this was amusing.
First, this is a request and not an outright ban. Why? Because we want to give responsible gun owners the chance to respect our request—and also because enforcing a ban would potentially require our partners to confront armed customers, and that is not a role I am comfortable asking Starbucks partners to take on. Second, we know we cannot satisfy everyone. For those who oppose “open carry,” we believe the legislative and policy-making process is the proper arena for this debate, not our stores. For those who champion “open carry,” please respect that Starbucks stores are places where everyone should feel relaxed and comfortable. The presence of a weapon in our stores is unsettling and upsetting for many of our customers.
Shorter Starbucks: “We’re asking but if not, OK.”
“We’re not pro or anti gun … this is not a ban .. we’re still going to serve them”
The lack of a means of self defense is unsettling and upsetting for people like me, especially considering how many times anti-Second Amendment bullies have threatened to kill me/rape me/whatever to prove their peaceful and loving nature. I’ve had more to fear from these people than they’ve ever had to fear from people like me. (Where is the ban on these people?) Again, most people conceal carry anyway, so there’s no way of knowing whether or not the mother next to you is packing or not. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz basically says that they can state firearms are unwelcome, but they still recognize laws which allow carry, so whatever, get along. “We cannot satisfy everyone,” he writes. Exactly. Just buy some coffee and shut up.
Anti-Second Amendment bullies failed to legislate the Second Amendment out of existence through their legislators so they attempt to do so through a Starbucks’s barista. Let me save you the energy: baristas don’t give a damn. They just want to take your insanely pretentious and overly complicated coffee order and get you out of the door. I’m not a fascist, so I’ve never been fist-in-the-air for boycotts, not even when the Dixie Chicks were advertising their stupidity overseas. If someone wanted to buy off-pitch crappy pop country, it’s their right as an American. When progressives completely fail to influence legislative action they then choose to bully and punish businesses.
This statement changes nothing. Hipsters can still suck down free wifi along with their double shot pumpkin spice lattes no whip and type away on their Macs about how much guns suck while blissfully unaware that the mother next to them may still be packing.
‘Merica.
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