Starbucks Must Be a Dangerous Place

The next time I go to Starbucks, I must remember to go packing heat, out in the open, where all the baddies can see my big gun so they won't mess with me.

Starbucks, that genteel neighborhood coffee store, is finding it is becoming the battlefield upon which gun control advocates and gun enthusiasts are going to have themselves a big showdown.  Folks have been showing up at Starbucks, among other places, brandishing their handguns openly in holsters around their waists, ensuring that their state right to do so has not been, and will not be, infringed upon.

I know that at one point it seemed as though there was a Starbucks on every corner, but these franchises must be in some pretty bad neighborhoods if people feel they need to be carrying firearms just to go get their tall soy milk double-shot latte.

Although it wouldn't be good business sense to open a Starbucks in a bad neighborhood since folks in those parts don't usually spend $4.50 on a cup of coffee.  And I'm not sure I see the point behind flaunting your pistol at the local java joint in safe, shiny suburbia.

OpenCarry.org is throwing their weight behind the gun-toting caffeine lovers, and is applauding Starbucks' choice to allow its customers to wield deadly force in one hand while sipping their hot mocha from the other.  OpenCarry hopes that guns become, "a symbol of ordinary personhood," and remind their followers that, "a right unexercised is a right lost."

Looking through their website, I'm not sure I've been able to determine what these folks are trying to accomplish.  They seem to advocate for people to carry guns around for no particular reason other than to display a pound and a half of bad attitude and paranoia on their belt.  The brunette on their homepage sure looks well... um... armed.

Remember that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the rights of citizens to bear arms so that a well-regulated militia may be maintained.  So OpenCarry is helping to establish the Starbucks militia?  I still don't get it.

71-year-old Richmond, Va. resident Dave Welch was quoted as saying, "I don't know of anybody who would provide me with defense other than myself, so I routinely as a way of life carry a weapon — and that extends to my coffee shops."

If Welch and the OpenCarry brigade are that scared to go out for a cup of coffee, perhaps they should stay home and make themselves a pot of Folger's.