Posted on 02/04/2010 8:01:51 PM PST by Still Thinking
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has declared war on a Northwest institution, and in the process perhaps the public will discover the extremes gun prohibitionists will go in an effort to push their radical agenda.
The Brady Bunch has Starbucks squarely in its crosshairs, hoping to browbeat the coffee giant into refusing service to an evidently growing clientele of law-abiding firearms owners. In an e-mail message sent out this week, Brady Campaign President Paul Helmke laments that, “Starbucks is refusing to prohibit open carrying in its stores, despite protests from loyal customers.”
Over the past few months, more and more gun owners have been gathering at restaurants and coffee shops like Starbucks with guns strapped to their hips--Paul Helmke
This was after Helmke acknowledged that his campaign of social bigotry against legally-armed citizens was launched because, “Over the past few months, more and more gun owners have been gathering at restaurants and coffee shops like Starbucks with guns strapped to their hips, intimidating fellow patrons.”
So, let me see if I have this straight. Because Starbucks is attracting increasing numbers of gun owners – presumably becoming the kind of loyal customers about whom Helmke writes – he wants the coffee chain to ban these people, in deference to his own ilk of hoplophobes.
In reaction, even more gun owners are declaring a sudden thirst for Starbucks blend and heading to their local coffee stand.
Is this not the same kind of nonsense I wrote about here last Friday, in reporting the angst demonstrated by Washington CeaseFire’s Ralph Fascitelli over the perfectly legal appearance at a public hearing in Olympia by several open carry activists?
The Brady camp has teamed up with CREDO Action, a self-proclaimed progressive activist organization that uses mobile phones to affect social change.
Helmke’s e-mail diatribe further complains that, “The practice of packing heat in places like Starbucks is intimidating and could be potentially dangerous to our families and communities -- and it must be stopped.
“It’s everyone's right to sit in a restaurant or coffee shop with their families without intimidation or fear of guns,” he says, “either concealed or openly carried.”
Intimidating to whom? This may come as a culture shock to Helmke, but it is equally everyone’s right – if they choose to exercise it – to sit in a restaurant with family or friends and not be concerned (because they are prepared) about criminal attack, or an incident on the scale of the Luby’s Massacre in October 1991, in which 23 restaurant patrons, disarmed at the time by Texas statute, were murdered. It might just be that Americans took a lesson from another incident two months later at a Shoney’s restaurant in Anniston, Alabama, in which a legally-armed citizen prevented a massacre by shooting two robbers who were herding people into a food locker.
I wrote about this incident with Alan Gottlieb in America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age.
Thomas Terry, the hero of Anniston, was discreetly but legally carrying a .45 caliber handgun when the robbers took over the restaurant. Facing two armed thugs, Terry shot one dead and severely wounded the other. None of the other patrons was harmed, other than Terry, who sustained a grazing wound to the hip.—Timothy Wheeler, MD
Helmke also argues that “Under the law, Starbucks has the right to adopt a gun-free policy, with an exception for uniformed police officers.”
Guess what, Paul. Starbucks also has the right as a business to allow patronage by anyone it damn well pleases, including legally-armed citizens. Their money is just as good as yours, and so far, there has not been a single reported incident involving any of these gun owners, including the robbery of a Starbucks while an armed citizen happens to be standing at the counter.
Social bigotry against gun owners is just as insidious as bigotry against any other group. What would the public reaction be if someone demanded that a private business refuse service to, say African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, Arabs, Native Americans, Samoans, disabled people, overweight people, gays or women? Got a tattoo? Stay out!
Helmke rants about intimidation, yet he has no reservations about trying to intimidate a business over some of the people it serves. His kind of demagoguery has one significant trait: Hypocrisy.
If Helmke and other gun prohibitionists don’t want to be around other citizens because they are legally armed, that is a problem, but it is their problem. Perhaps they should start drinking tea.
Mixed emotions about this one.
Well, it really isn't that, but at least it's really expensive.
Isnt Starbucks still donating to anti gun groups?
I think you may be referring to some unsubstantiated e-mail that was circulating on the Internet... LOL...
Or perhaps it was another list that I saw with Starbucks' name on it, along with every company that exists in the United States, on it, too -- all being anti-gun... :-)
Aside from that, I don't know of anything substantiated... (and those weren't substantiated by any means...).
And Heck! You do know that Rush Limbaugh even has computers (that he considers to be absolutely wonderful) from a company that has Al Gore on the board... LOL...
Gun solvent tastes better’n that overpriced crap.
Do they even sell anything that DOESN’T taste like it’s been run through a monkeys butt?
Starbucks today! Apple Computer stores tomorrow!
Imagine walking into one of those with a .45 strapped to your thigh and asking for an iPad.
WELL let me clarify, I think it is good tasting coffee. You are more than welcome to think what you want.
I read somewhere that Washington CeaseFire’s Ralph Fascitelli isn’t even a Seattle native - he’s a recent East Coast transplant. Sent here to impose his fascist liberal views on the great unwashed Northwest. Carpetbagger.
Correction. It’s just an overpriced cup of coffee.
Righteous comment!
---
Send treats to the troops...
Great because you did it!
www.AnySoldier.com
Sooner or later big business is going to figure out that getting into bed with the left for the past 15 years was a big mistake. The demands never stop and if you don’t obey when they think they own you, they will hate you and harm you. Personally, I think Starbucks should be unionized./s/
I seem to remember that some time ago, Starbucks was getting heat (forgive the pun) about not letting their workers have a gun locked in their car in their parking lot—or some such.
Killed 1997, Mary Caitrin Mahoney, 25, Former Clinton intern.
If someone would change this campaign’s logo to replace “?” with “!”, we’d have something rather nifty to kick around.
Sarah Brady isa totalitarian.
I manage a Starbucks Store. I am a Conservative. I have witnessed tolerance by the higher powers that exist for my beliefs, my faith, the organizations and causes I donate my personal time and money to. I wear a US Flag pin proudly each day. My customers are primarily conservative, except for a few fruitloops that have been in college for 10 years and still haven’t graduated.
The capture rate for my store remains high, and I will always seek to go above and beyond the “norm” to cultivate highly-satisfied customers.
I guess my point is that Starbucks and Schultz may be uber-liberal, but I still get to be me and I love my job. I truly enjoy my customers and look forward to seeing them stop by .
Most stores should be run in the exact fashion, where the customer is ALWAYS first, where Baristas get to know your name, remember your drink of choice, sincerely ask you how your day is going, and go above and beyond to get your order exactly right everytime.
Do you get that kind of feeling when your in your local Wal-Mart?
Do you really think WM cares about you? Or is it your almighty dollar?
I continue with my motto everyday...my associates are sick of hearing it. “It can take months to cultivate a highly satisfied customer and 5 minutes to lose one”.
oh...here’s a hint....if you aren’t satisfied with your beverage, tell your Barista. They should continue to make you a drink until you are satisfied. As for my store, we’ll throw away beverage after beverage until our customer is served a drink they are satisfied with.
ps..we have Fox News!!
“I don’t want to check out anything. To me and a lot of other people it is just a cup of coffee.”
...and Avatar is just another film. Conservatives still (for now) hold the money in this country. When we give that money to businesses (and people) that are against us, we see it come back to us in well-funded campaigns, like Obama’s. If we were as careful controlling where our money went (i.e., to conservative, or at least neutral, causes), the liberals would be defunded practically overnight, and we would not have to cower in fear while the 20% of the country that call themselves liberal exact their revenge on the 40% that call themselves conservative (and the remaining 40% in the middle).
And the next time an Avatar-like film comes out, we would get to see an enjoyable movie, rather than (yet again) be lectured at.
The important point here is that the disarm the law-abiding, Brady gun grabbers have a major problem with people having the right and the ability to defend themselves.
This isn’t about gun safety or ‘protecting the children’, for them it’s all about diminishing the power the citizens of this nation and nothing else, never forget that.
Civet coffee: for people who don't know what civets are.
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