EDITORIAL: Packing a gun in Starbucks

U bring out a good point:
are Dr. Jack and the farmer equally as fearful of their lives
in coffeeshops patronized by the police ?

A cop is trained and duly licensed to carry. Hes the trained peace officer. I still feel uncomfortable about guns in commerce whether carried by cops or the public. Cops sometimes go berserk and kill others (usually their own family members). Too bad guns cant think and determine whether the carrier is packed tight enough to warrant a carry permit.

Of course, Im sure that, with all the money spent by gun lobbies, they wouldnt countenance ANY controls on a gun that would lessen its random use in opening fiore in a donut shop.

starbuck couldnt give a fat rats clacker about your personal freedoms and rights.
The only thing they care about is profit.

watch em run backwards if their profit margin receeds.

If he has a LICENSE, what good does THAT do?
Its only a matter of how u choose to THINK about it,
Farmer, just your preferred superstition.



HOW is that important? When my pals and I were kids, we were not a
"trained peace officer" but no harm ever came from our defensive guns.
U don 't use a fire extinguisher, unless there is a fire.
U don 't use a spare tire, unless there is a flat.
U don 't use your defensive gun, unless u need to defend yourself,
or at target practice. It was never a big deal. Guns were very abundant in Arizona.
U seem to be paranoid about guns, Farmer.



Well, u can feel uncomfortable about other people's constitutional rights,
but that has no effect on the existence of their rights, even tho u don 't like them.





Yeah, its a beautiful thing to see citizens bravely fighting for
their constitutional rights. It makes me proud to be an AMERICAN; I donated and re-donated.
At an NRA meeting in Seattle a few years ago,
speaking from the audience, I donated a $100 bill
specifically for the LOBBYING activity,
and I challenged my fellow attenders to do the same.
Thay collected a few $1000s.
It was a beautiful long parade of fervent guys with their cash going up, fighting against gun control.






Churchill said:
"We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender."
Maybe the farmer 'd have preferred that he compromize,
yielding part of the beaches, give them maybe a field here n there?

I 'd like to think that we r equally as resolute in resisting gun control.
Discriminatory licensure of the right to self defense is unAmerican and its evil.

(However, people with nasty criminal histories can be removed from contact with the decent people.)





David

That is how it shoud be; capitalism is beauty.




I don 't begrudge them that;
notice how thay are NOT doing that?
What does that tell u?

I have many family members who have in the past carried guns. They do not carry them openly any longer but that does not mean they don't still have them in their houses, take them out for target practice, or use them when hunting. I was around them from a very young age. I was taught the dangerousness of them, but I was also taught gun safety. I knew where it was stored, I knew where the bullets were and I knew how to defeat the safety mechanisms. (at age 6!) this was all so that I could use it in the event my parents were perhaps held at gun point themselves.

My step dad was not nice at all. There were times I was afraid he would use the gun on my mother, or my mother would attempt to use the gun on him (when he got into his violent temper fits) I was keenly aware of their heated arguements and was always ready to call the cops or for help if they so much as got near the closet where it was stored.

I'm even a pretty good shot at target practice.

Just because someone owns and carries a gun does not make them crazy or have an itchy trigger finger to shoot someone. Crazy is crazy and can use a gun, a knife, a tire iron or some other implement of destruction to hurt, maim, or kill someone. It's not WHAT is being carried as to WHOM is carrying it that makes the difference to me.

Oh and as for SB's allowing it. I support it. I'll feel safer there then I would in a donut shop with a cop that has a big belly and is obviously out of shape that he would HAVE to use the gun to stop someone as opposed to using some other means to bring him down. Just my two cents.

Thank u, MM; that makes a lot of sense to me.





David

I am just curious David, but why when someone has a negative view about guns, do you call them paranoid?

I don't like lima beans and I speak out about it. But it does not make me paranoid about them.

I am not a fan of guns. I have been trained to use them, I am very skilled them, I have been forced to use them for protection. But I still do not like the fact of people being able to carry them all willy nilly about.

Say you were in a Starbucks and someone comes into rob the place. They pull out a gun. And 5 out of the 20 costumers then pull out their own gun. What happens when one person fires? I have seen it many times. One person fires and everyone shoots. It's the reflex of someone who is untrained of what to do in a hostile situation.

I don't think (I am just THINKING mind you) that the other posters worry about people carrying weapons as much as they worry about what that person will do in a situation where they have no training. You can have all the training in the world at shooting targets, and know all the rules about gun safety, but there is always one person who wants to be a hero. That person usually gets people killed.

wish I could have said it that well. DAve is a libertarian. Libertarians love chaos and disorder. They are the second law of Thermodynamics made flesh.

I avoid Starbucks in the town where I now live because there are several independent coffee shops, locally and not nationally owned, that I would rather give my dollars to.

I did patronize Starbucks where I used to live because the other choice was Dunkin' Donuts, an even bigger national chain whose coffee is to my liking. However, my friends patronized Starbucks, which was also a good place to meet new people.

I honestly like espresso (and even spell it correctly) and can not drink coffee made in an automatic drip coffee maker.

Yeah, there used to be a locally owned coffee shop, La Dolce Vita, here in the a-hole o' that made a great espresso shake. It's been years that it's been closed now.

In Spain they call automatic drip coffe café americano.

mmm, espresso skake. . .

I don't find anything bad about drip coffee-makers. The problem is that most Americans seem to like their coffee very weak and don't know beans about beans. I use a Mr. Coffee type drip pot but I also fresh-grind my locally-grown Kona and/or Ka'u coffee beans and make sure there's at least one teaspoon of coffee per each cup of water.

Add a pinch of gunpowder at your own risk.

I admit to going to starbucks back in what I called north-north because it was one of the few places in town where I could pick up the NYTimes. I didn't like it because a) I didn't much like the coffee, even adulterated with milk and b) I hated the more italian than italian presentation of choices.

Once I bought a two pound bag of starbucks beans at Costco. The whole bag was full of burn crap around the beans. Toss.

So, my threat of not going there would have little effect.

I am happy seed expressed my thinking.

Well, one reason is that the farmer used language of emotion, as distinct from calculative analysis,
that he is uncomfortable with his fellow citizens having guns,
in this thread and in other threads over the years; to that,
I add his belief, disproportionate to the real world,
that the gun manufacturers are the real resistance to gun control,
not freedom loving people. I 'm not entirely sure whether he
thinks I 'm getting paid by manufacturers to propagandize or not,
but he has hit that note several times; I think it looms large in his belief system.
(This is not to imply that there 'd be anything bad about that;
if I found a check from Ruger or Taurus in my mail I 'd cash it.)
By his allegations of the opponents to gun control being
the gun manufacturing industry, he implies that we are hypocrits
to whom our freedom of self defense means little or nothing,
but that only financial profit is of interest, with the further implication
that only such a person woud dissent from his opinion.
He appears to be an intelligent scientist who abandons reason to emotion,
in some instances, like freedom of ordinary Americans to bear arms whenever thay want.
The farmer will correct me,
if I have misrepresented his position in any regard.

To that I also add the unjustified accusation oft repeated VERY oft repeated,
with much redundancy, that people who carrry guns defensively
are nuts, specifically paranoid; i.e., imagining dangers that don 't exist.
Citizens who carry spare tires in their trunks are not accused of being nuts.
Citizens who keep fire extinguishers around are not impugned qua their sanity,
but concern about the specific danger of predatory violence,
of man or beast, and preparation for such emergencies is alleged to be sick.
So, its a little bit of fun to return the accusation;
he really DOES seem to have some emotional issues qua people 's gun possession.





Dislike of the beans and avoidance is different than an unreasoning fear of them,
seeing them as a persistent danger.
If u began to fear the beans that coud become a problem for u.


I respect everyone 's right to his own opinion.
A woman of my acquaintance is a very intensely militant atheist.
She strongly dislikes anyone going to church. I respect her right to her opinion
as long as she does not endeavor to prevent her fellow citizens
from making their own decisions. That applies also to people who people who don 't like other people to carry guns.






OK, in that scenario bad guy enters shop and declares a robbery, probably LOUD maybe with some obscene threats.
Probably, he points his gun at the cashier.
5 guys then take out their guns and point them at HIM.
In that situation, the emergency is under much better control
that it was when Bad Guy was exercising a monopoly of power.
When 5 good guys aim at him: the balance of power changes.




In that situation, I 'd be inclined to save my ammo.

On the other hand,
if I were directly threatened,
then I'd have to do what I coud ASAP to degrade the enemy's offensive capability.



The concept of compulsory education has been fully accepted thru out America.
If u choose to add tactical defenses and the law to that curriculum, I will not object.




OK train everyone in practical defensive tactics and the law,
and amend the law in furtherance of the principles of Castle Doctrine
in the 25 States where that has not already happened.

The idea is just that in a predatory emergency,
it is imperative that the victim be able to control the situation,
not just have faith in the mercy of the violent predator.





David

David, you have some pretty irrational quirks. In fact, you are one of the least rational people I have ever come across. Yes, we know you have always been strong on defense . . . but I have the feeling that you are someone from NH where there is no reason to ever defend yourself against anything . . . except hunters!

Why do you have this obsession with guns?

Do you carry a gun? If so, why?

Magnanimously disregarding your off-topic personal insults: there are more than one reason.
Nothing is more fundamental than self defense.
The illogic of anti-self defense liberals has fascinated my curiousity.
I 've always been very interested in how people think, especially those who disagree with me.
I ponder: how coud any being with the same basic DNA that I have possibly think that way?

There is something else that I will mention:
it seems to me, that the best test of a political candidate
is manifested in the microcosm of the fight for freedom against gun control.
It has been my observation that this consideration is key to revealing
whether he craves and supports dependence of the Individual upon the collective for preservation of existence,
or
upon personal reliance. I choose to vote for candidates who exalt the rights and pleasures
of the Individual citizen above the general well being.
I believe that a society with NO gun control will foster self reliance, being Individualistic, libertarian n hedonistic,
whereas a society wherein the gun control philosophy prevails tends to produce
docile victims of collectivist authoritarianism.



I bet that u coud guess.
Because it is wise to carry emergency equipment
to control emergencies, if thay arise.
U coud have guessed that, right ?

I 'm not sure whether that remark about loving chaos is a joke or not.

DAve, I own some guns and have never thought about openly packing one into a Starbucks (bad coffee aside, I dont think that my gun would improve their beans). I think about my guns only when someone wants to do some target practice or hunting. I normally think about them as much as I think about my indoor plumbing (hint: hardly ever)
SOOOOOO.
What many people here are worried about is your sometimes sad yet funny obsession with all things pistolean. I know you have other interests that dont involve plugging someone neh?

In the past, I was crusading for civil rights, against discriminatory licensure of the right to defend your life.
I was also having fun with it.
I also have a touch of OCD; no rituals, but got obsessed with a young lady for a long time.
I was MORE obsessessed with defense from the commies b4 Christmas of 1991 than with gun control.
I 've not thought as much about that since then.
Now, I see gun control collapsing as communism did after the Berlin Wall was torn down.





I have not discussed plugging someone, so far as I remember.

Your obliqueties on the subject are almost laser-like on that very subject. You post about the utility of a gun when needed and , to me, that inb=volves plugging someone. Im sure I can go back in this thread,(I have neither time nor interest to do so) and find somew references by you that can easily be interpreted to mean pluggery.