Starbucks, Like Robert Heinlein & William S. Burroughs, Knows That an Armed Society is a Polite Society
Full disclosure: I'm in a Starbucks even as I'm blogging this story about how the Seattle-based caffeine kingpin is er, actually, acceding to common sense in its decision to allow customers to pack heat in jurisdictions that allow that sort of thing:
The Seattle-based coffee giant was thrust in the middle of a gun-control debate it never wanted to have when it refused a request from gun-control groups to ban guns in its stores this winter.
The company gave short, curt statements as the issue gained traction over the past several weeks. On Wednesday, as gun-control advocates prepared a Seattle news conference in view of the original Starbucks store, the company spoke loud and clear: We've made our decision. Can we please move on?
Here's hoping that Starbucks sticks to its guns, especially given that there is no reason to believe that more guns in circulation per se increases crime. Indeed, a liberal carry policy, btw, would have helped avert one of the worst horror shows in American history, the 1991 mass murder in a Killeen, Texas restaurant by a deranged shooter (state law at the time precluded legal gun owners from bringing weapons into such places; one survivor said she would have had a clear shot at the killer had she not left her gun in her vehicle).
Early, unfortunate scene featuring thugs from the Members Only criminal syndicate in 1982's Sudden Impact, really one of the worst movies ever made, in which Clint Eastwood makes his own day: