Matter of time before blood hits the walls
Editor, The Times:
In the article in The Times about Starbucks and its run-in with the gun-rights crowd [“Starbucks stuck in crossfire for allowing guns in stores,” Business, Mar. 4], Open Carry’s co-founder Mike Stollenwerk used an appropriate metaphor to describe how their members initially used to meet at Peet’s Coffee: “That’s where the Open Carry group started to coagulate.”
Was he intentionally referring to what happens to blood when it’s splattered on walls and display cases or gathers in pools on the ground? I fear that it is only a matter of time before this latest round of loosened gun restrictions — both in our national parks and urban settings like Starbucks — results in a confrontation of some sort that explodes into serious injury or death because one or more of the parties involved is legally packing heat and uses it in disproportionate force to settle some dispute or perceived slight.
Americans need to realize that beneath all the clamor about freedom and rights to carry guns wherever people want, there is a cynical and manipulative formula at work. More guns in more people’s hands will not make us safer. It does, however, result in increased gun sales, which translate into major profits for gun manufacturers and their lobbyists, who wave the flag all the way to the bank and use the proceeds to persuade legislators to further roll back restrictions on all manner of firearms.
Of course, I’d hesitate in pointing all this out to the guy with the camo shirt and the handgun on his hip sitting in my local coffee shop. Somehow, brandishing a loaded weapon has a way of chilling public discourse — maybe that’s the intent?
— Ron Dickson, Seattle
Blame on both sides
There seems to be an ad missing in the lost-and-found section of the classifieds because advocates on both sides of the gun-control debate seemed to have lost their common sense. I have to believe everyone can do better than this.
Shame on gun carriers for carelessly using an innocent Seattle-based company to deliberately provoke anti-gun activists. They’ve turned Starbucks into a new kind of gun victim. If they insist on publicly demonstrating their right to bear arms, they should at least find a way to do so that doesn’t target one company over its competitors.
And be smart about it, for crying out loud. Do gun carriers really think they outnumber the Starbucks latte-sipping customers who don’t accessorize with shiny pistols? With this thoughtless course of action, they may force a company to institute a policy that further limits their right to bear arms when they claim that’s not what they want. I’m starting to wonder if gun toters aren’t just the crazy uncle who likes to say inappropriate things at family reunions to see what kind of reaction he might get. If they’re bored, they should try bridge lessons instead.
Shame on the gun-control advocates for taking the bait and reacting with little more thought than the gun bearers themselves. The Legislature has been in session for a couple of months. Why are you marching in front of coffee shops instead of in front of the lawmakers who are better positioned to change state laws.
No responsible company — providing health benefits for its employees during these tough economic times — needs this right now. If they must protest a company, why not take the cause to places like Walmart where guns are sold a few aisles down from salad dressing?
Where’s the playground teacher to stop this silliness so both sides can make their case in what was, until now, a legitimate debate?
— Charla Neuman, Tacoma
Give baristas bulletproof vests
Geez Louise, I couldn’t have made a better argument for not having guns in Starbucks than Starbucks did!
The Seattle Times’ article regarding adopting a ban on openly carrying guns in Starbucks stores would force its employees — called partners — “to ask law-abiding customers to leave our stores, putting our partners in an unfair and potentially unsafe position.”
We know how us Seattleites value our coffee, but do they expect a shootout over customers being asked to sip without guns? What if a partner shorts a gun toter on whipped cream, shots of espresso or that little wrap-around-the-cup thing that keeps the heat down? Maybe partners need to make fantastic coffee drinks while packing and wearing a bulletproof vest?
— Karen Babeaux, Shoreline