Do you like your coffee with or without a Glock semi-automatic pistol? asked Derrick Jackson in The Boston Globe. If you’re a patron of Starbucks, you may have to make that decision, now that gun-rights activists have launched a new campaign to publicize their right to bear arms by openly carrying their weapons in public. Some major retailers responded to this attempt to return the country to the “Wild West” by banning guns on their premises, so as not to terrify children and other patrons, but Starbucks took the coward’s way out. The coffee giant issued a whimpering statement begging not to be dragged “into the middle of this divisive issue,” and said it would respect laws that make open carrying legal in 43 states. As a result, some Starbucks stores are now full of gleeful gun owners sipping Ventis and nibbling vanilla scones while “flaunting their firearms.”
That’s not just a protest—it’s a public service, said the Manchester, N.H., Union Leader in an editorial. By allowing guns in their coffee shops, Starbucks is not only honoring its customers’ constitutional right to bear arms—it is actively protecting their safety. It was only four months ago, let’s not forget, that four police officers were gunned down in a Washington state coffee shop before they had time to draw their own weapons. Had other customers been armed, they could have fired on the shooter and saved lives. “How many more innocent deaths will it take before the irrational anti-gun movement sees that?” It’s simple common sense, said Nick Gillespie in Reason.com. “An armed society is a polite society.”
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