The first time I was aware of a Starbucks event was from the pro side: Starbucks Appreciation Day. After that was an organized response to the boycott event organized by the antis in response to the appreciation day. After that it was a handful of open carry events.chasfm11 wrote:If I'm not mistaken, this was the genesis of the Starbucks problem. The Antis organized a boycott of all of the stores that tolerated OC and all but Starbucks folded. Starbucks said that it would abide by the law and that OC was legal. Now, Starbucks, too, has folded. I'm not surprised. Seattle is hardly the hot bed of 2nd Amendment support and being the only one left out on a limb, Starbucks became the focal point of the antis actions.CoffeeNut wrote:This is kind of disappointing but I've never seen a Starbucks with 30.06 and until I do they'll still get my infrequent business. I did participate in one of the "Starbucks Appreciation Days" and the place was slammed. My only form of "appreciation" was buying a coffee and burning up their wifi with my "I Love Guns and Coffee" emblazoned laptop.
I can understand why a corporation is fed up with their locations being treated as protest points that may or may not scare away customers but I can also see why us gun folk would want to make a point especially when there are so few mainstream places that would even tolerate open carry in their stores today.
I'm really conflicted about this. The protestors have proven time and time again that action beats inaction. When they protested at the homes of the bank executives, those bank executives abandoned good business sense and started making stupid housing loans - that lead us to the mortgage crisis. They picket illegally, do so with impunity on private property and seem to be winning the vast majority of these conflicts, this being the latest. I have seen very few of of these situations where a calmed, reasoned approach was successful. Only the Scott Walker recall and this year's abortion debate in Austin come to mind. Even with the latter, Davis and her minions were initially successful.
I agree with Anygun - if we employed similar tactics, we would all be arrested and prosecuted. I'm really getting tired of the media, law enforcement and the power of the government being used against me and my freedoms. At some point, we're going to have to figure out a way to counter the protest mindset or we are simply going to continue to get overrun and our freedoms diminished. I wish I had a better solution than counter-protests but I don't.
The mortgage crisis was caused by bankers loading variable rate loans onto folks who couldn't normally qualify for a standard rate loan. There weren't any protests until after it was decided that some banks & other companies were 'too big to fail'.
If you want a model in how to go about getting our eroded rights back, study Charles Cotton's legislative updates on this site and his TFC & TSRA entries. Shock & Awe sounded good in a sound bite concerning military activity. But it's a poor strategy for changing public policy. You want change? Work for it. Get involved in discussions with your elected representatives. Get active in the legislative process & work it from the inside. Campaign for strong candidates that share your views. Provide reasoned and sound arguments in support of your position without engaging in the mud slinging and outrageous rhetoric.
Lastly. Not being allowed to frequent a business armed isn't an infringement of your rights. It's an exercise of theirs. If you don't like this policy or that of any other business, you're free to patronize any of a number of other establishments.