Thumbs Up: Starbucks is Gun Friendly

Being a huge coffee lover I'm already a fan of Starbucks, and despite the fact that their prices make regular visits impossible, I still found another reason to love this company. They are gun friendly. That's right, gun friendly.

According to a foxnews.com story running today, Starbucks has decided not to join an ever-lengthening list of retailers and restaurants banning firearms on their premises. The story begins by talking about a 71 year-old Virginia man who carries a legal side arm when he goes out of the house, including his regular trips to the local coffee house. The man says he gets a second look now and again from other patrons but is never challenged by Starbucks employees. That's the way it should be.

Virginia is only one of many states in the Union that operate under "open carry" laws; that is to say firearms can be carried openly in public with little or no restriction. In some of these states business owners can restrict legal gun-carrying in their buildings and that's where Starbucks comes in. According to the Fox News report Starbucks is content to allow all its customers the free exercise of their constitutional rights, a fact that gun-ban supporters don't like. According to Ralph Fascitelli of Washington Ceasefire, places like Starbucks are considered "societal sanctuaries" and should be free of guns.

"People go to Starbucks for an escape, just so they can get peace," he said. "But people walk in with open-carry guns and it destroys the tranquility."

I wonder if Mr. Fascitelli believes free speech should be banned in his favorite coffee shop because some customers speak with foul language. To be honest, that's one of the things that keeps me from spending much time in small, intimate "societal sanctuaries" like Starbucks. The foul-mouthed patrons who speak so glibly of their mothers and female dogs destroy the tranquility for me and many others. Yet we are not circulating petitions to attempt to force Starbucks to limit speech. There would be a huge outcry, and rightfully so, if we did.

So why are we even having this debate in our country? I agree with a statement made by OpenCarry.org's John Pierce who told Fox News, "If you're going to support individual rights, you have to support them all."

Right on, Mr. Pierce!

It amazes me how the do-gooders in our society are so willing to trample on, or even give up in some cases, the individual liberties of our nation in order to allegedly stop crime. It won't work, people! Criminals do not obey the law - that's why we call them criminals. And if a man is so sensitive to the sight of a gun that it destroys his tranquility, he has bigger problems that the gun-toting coffee patron being in the same room. Seriously. We've become a society that's hyper-sensitive about everything. We think if we can just change what we see and hear to make our environment more pleasing, we can ignore the reality of the world and it will solve its own problems. Like the proverbial ostrich with his head in the sand, ignoring the fact that criminal activity can only be stopped with swift and severe punishment only makes us more vulnerable to crime.

Moving on, Mr. Peter Hamm of the Brady Campaign made a statement of his own which is just as inane as Mr. Facitelii's. He said:

"If you want to dress up and go out and make a little political theater by frightening children in the local Starbucks, if that's what you want to spend your energy on, go right ahead. But going out and wearing a gun on your belt to show the world you're allowed to is a little juvenile."

Mr. Hamm, I have but one question for you: How many little children frequent your local Starbucks?

Furthermore sir, while there have been organized groups of people purposely visiting public establishments to demonstrate their legal right to bear arms, in most cases the incidents are not of that nature. The Virginia man, for instance, carries a weapon for his own protection whenever he goes out of the house. His gun is as much a part of his wardrobe as his pants and shirt. But even when organized groups do go out to "demonstrate" their right to carry, why is that juvenile? Is it any different than the anti-war demonstrators during Vietnam and both Gulf Wars? If the exercise of one's right to carry a gun is juvenile, then so is your right to freely speak your mind. You might consider that next time you feel like opining to the press.

Regardless of your position on gun control, seemingly lost in this debate are the cold, hard facts. Gun control is embarked upon by many local and state governments as a means of reducing violent crime, yet statistics prove it has no bearing. According to justfacts.com, a website listing verifiable facts and statistics regarding gun control, "Washington D.C. enacted a virtual ban on handguns in 1976. Between 1976 and 1991, Washington D.C.'s homicide rate rose 200%, while the U.S. rate rose 12%."

Now, I will not take the position that gun control increases the rate of violent crime, but Washington is just one example proving at the very least it does nothing to reduce violent crime. Even a piece by the normally liberal NY Times in June 2008 contained quotes and analysis admitting as much. Time and again the hard facts show gun control does little of what it purports to do.

Some other interesting tidbits from justfacts.com:

"When the law [the right-to-carry law of 1987] went into effect, the Dade County [Fla.] Police began a program to record all arrest and non arrest incidents involving concealed carry licensees. Between September of 1987 and August of 1992, Dade County recorded 4 crimes committed by licensees with firearms. None of these crimes resulted in an injury. The record keeping program was abandoned in 1992 because there were not enough incidents to justify tracking them."

"As of 1998, no permit holder has ever shot a police officer. There have been several cases in which a permit holder has protected an officer's life."

"In about 5 years since enactment of the Brady Bill and Assault Weapons Ban in 1993, there have been 9 "school massacres."

"In October of 1997, sixteen-year-old Luke Woodham stabbed his mother to death and then went to school with a rifle where he shot 9 students, killing 2 of them. Assistant Principal Joel Myrick raced to his car, retrieved a .45 caliber handgun, and used it to subdue Woodham until police arrived."

The point of all these facts is that while it's true statistics can be massaged according to who crunches the numbers, the vast majority of statistical analysis confirms time and again that gun control does nothing to reduce violent crime. Studies showing the opposite view, like a 1997 study linking the Brady Bill to a reduction in gun violence are few and far between. This should be no surprise; as I stated earlier in this article, criminals do not obey the law.

In the end the only gun control that might, and I stress the word "might", significantly reduce gun violence is the total ban on any and all guns in our country. That means no manufacturing, sale, distribution, or importation of guns for any purpose. Of course, any thinking person knows this isn't not viable because the criminal will find a way, and if he has guns while the police don't who wins the day? Even worse, citizens without weapons are sitting ducks for a tyrannical government. Hitler knew that and took guns away from German citizens before beginning his violent destruction of the Jews. Can we learn from history?

My friends, I am not in favor of allowing violent crime to continue. But I am also not in favor of denying the rights of law abiding citizens in an attempt to curtail the criminal. We can stop violent crime in its tracks through swift and severe punishment of violent criminals. The purpose of punishment is not to rehabilitate, it is to deter. For punishment to be effective as a deterrent, it must be equal to, or greater than, the crime committed. We have escalating levels of violent crime in our country because we refuse to deal with criminal swiftly and severely. Until that happens I will protect myself and my family with as many guns as needed.

Sources:
Buzz and Bullets: Gun Fans Cheer Starbucks - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com - http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,587641,00.html?test=latestnews

Gun Control - http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

The Nation - Gun Laws and Crime - A Complex Relationship - NYTimes.com - http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/weekinreview/29liptak.html