Safer Streets 2010: Starbucks supports armed customers.

In the Huffington Post, Dennis Henigan writes Why? [ Starbucks sticks to its guns; Why? ] The article was very harsh, emotional and it gets to be very off-issue. In other words, if a company doesn’t rush to kick customers out of its establishment, do you just keep hounding them?

This is the style of gun control groups. It is beginning to reach other cultural corners and Americans are beginning to feel it everywhere. Several articles have praised Starbucks for their stand, and I have written a few of those. I also added that when it comes to the vaunted concept of Corporate Citizenship or Corporate Social Responsibility, it’s much more than how the resources are derived (Starbucks is proud of its record) and more than how the employees are treated; it is whether a corporation serves the independence of the people to whom its serves coffee as an equally important and enduring corporate outlook value. It makes the company something like its product: wholesome.

The Brady Center To Prevent Handgun Violence has been pressuring Starbucks to ask its gun carrying customers to go buy their coffee somewhere else in a state where it’s not only legal to open-carry a sidearm, but quite common. Starbucks declined, and welcomes customers with a sidearm, it seems, and it should be free to decide without pressure from the left. Gun owners have been pressuring Starbucks, too: with public praise, visiting their outlets and buying coffee. One even declared a special day of thanks. I personally bought a cup here in Los Angeles (I always buy Starbucks) and then thanked the people who made my cup of coffee.

Starbucks’ response to Brady was an announcement that it would adhere to state and federal law and counsel of police. What Brady didn’t know or failed to remember is that the bulk of beat officers endorse armed citizens like Paramedics endorse Citizen CPR: when there is no one else, and you’re all you have before first responders can arrive, not only is it legal, it’s encouraged. Forty states affirm your right to carry a handgun and they have not been made to regret that. More states have made it illegal to confiscate guns in time of disaster, and Congress three years ago made it entirely illegal to confiscate guns in disaster.

One of the best kept secrets of gun control is that police and gun owners are allies. Brady is out of the loop when it comes to community safety this way.

The fact is that it is not a gun culture, but a liberty culture, and more Americans are taking notice of this as germane to all our other rights.

Gun control has always tried to lure officials from their oath of office. It depends heavily on that, and it has been somewhat successful. But when a company like Starbucks stands up for its customers in the way the pressure group did not expect, it sets the example.

Praise to Starbucks for showing that our version of Corporate Citizenship is not only green, it is red, white and blue.

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John Longenecker’s book - Safe Streets In The Nationwide Concealed Carry Of Handguns - is written purely for non-gun owners. It is available now on e-book and as a 2GB USB flash drive Limited Edition with updates and added commentaries.