Guns and Coffee

Now, let me preface this with:  I think that the world should be filled with rainbows and unicorns and no one should even need a gun.  And there is no violence.  And everyone eats dessert for breakfast.

So, Starbucks's CEO released a statement saying that he'd rather not have people openly carrying guns in the store.

I would like to clarify two points. First, this is a request and not an outright ban. Why? Because we want to give responsible gun owners the chance to respect our request—and also because enforcing a ban would potentially require our partners to confront armed customers, and that is not a role I am comfortable asking Starbucks partners to take on. Second, we know we cannot satisfy everyone. For those who oppose “open carry,” we believe the legislative and policy-making process is the proper arena for this debate, not our stores. For those who champion “open carry,” please respect that Starbucks stores are places where everyone should feel relaxed and comfortable. The presence of a weapon in our stores is unsettling and upsetting for many of our customers.

So, howls have already gone up on both sides of this issue.  the Pro-gun people demanding boycotts and crying about how the liberals are going to take their guns away.  The anti-gun people saying that this doesn't go far enough.  Reading the comments of a few news stories... it's already starting.

So, in a world where an armed (probably mentally unstable) man just shot up the Navy Yard in DC... do we really want to see this while getting coffee?

For me?  No.  I don't like guns.  I don't like to see them.  (Unless they are Nerf guns.  Those are rather non-lethal)  This sight would make me uncomfortable.

A handgun in a holster?  still uneasy.. but not as much.

Honestly, is expecting to run into a moose in the drive-thru?

So to sum up:  Starbucks' official position is this:  We'd rather not have the guns in the stores.... but we won't tell you to leave.

I'll be over here, with my Pumpkin Spice Latte.