The other day, Starbucks CEO, Howard Schultz, asked his customers to refrain from bringing their guns into his shops, and of course, a furor immediately started. I respect Mr Schultz’ property rights and admit that it’s his prerogative whether he wants to let armed people into his places of business or not. The same way I respect Denny’s gun ban – I just don’t go to Denny’s anymore. But, you know that us pro-gun people share some of the blame for Schultz’ decision. While it was fine to support their open-carry policy before this week, some pro-gun people would use Starbucks as a rally point for our cause, and I’m sure that wasn’t especially good for business. And I could hardly keep up with whether I was supposed to support or boycott Starbucks on a given day because conservatives attacked Schultz when he said he supported gay marriage recently. <\/p>\n
I’m not a big fan of open carry, anyway – yeah, I know it’s your constitutional right to carry your gun outside your pants for the world to see, but it’s also my right to feel uncomfortable around someone who hasn’t bothered to go through the background checks for a concealed weapons permit. And mostly, anymore, people who open carry are just trying to make a political statement, and it has nothing to do with personal protection.<\/p>\n
To his credit, Mr Schultz just asked customers to stop, so he could remove his business from the center of the controversy. I respect that. I mean, I don’t know how much my respect will impact his decisions or his business since the nearest Starbucks is 60 miles from my house, and I have, you know, a coffeepot in my kitchen. But, I don’t fault him for the decision at all. <\/p>\n
The extremes of both sides of the gun discussion can be equally assholish. If you have a CCW permit, no one is going to know whether you have a gun or not – you know, if your intention is really protection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"