First Starbucks

Another "victory" brought to us by the Open Carry zealots with no common sense.

Pretty hard to blame the business. I'd ban guns too if people started carrying rifles in my store.

I am not opposed to Open Carry, though I fully realize that my failure to support the actions of a tiny militant minority will have me labeled as The Enemy.
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Clearly you are the enemy..of stupid shoot yourself in the foot ideas. :rolleyes:

On Texas's CHL focused site this has been roiling with concerns over what these individuals are doing. The TSRA had stepped up to help push OC legislation, but is now backpeddling big time.
 
There's no need for Starbucks, etc. to go overboard and dictate "no guns". All they need to do is say that anyone displaying a firearm on the premises will be required to leave.

Folks who are skittish about people open carrying guns will be appeased. Fine. Those with carry permits can continue to carry their firearm for protection. And, the store gets back to business as usual.
 
Skans said:
There's no need for Starbucks, etc. to go overboard and dictate "no guns". All they need to do is say that anyone displaying a firearm on the premises will be required to leave.

Folks who are skittish about people open carrying guns will be appeased. Fine. Those with carry permits can continue to carry their firearm for protection. And, the store gets back to business as usual.
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I disagree. Keep in mind that they had a tremendous amount of pressure from the anti-gun groups to ban guns, and they still didn't cave at first. They only caved after news outlets around the country covered the swarms of "activists" open-carrying handguns and long guns inside their stores, all while driving away paying customers.

At that point, Starbucks just wanted it all to end so they could focus on selling coffee. The easiest thing to do was simply ask people not to bring guns into their stores. If they had openly made an exception for concealed carry they would have kept the issue alive. It also would not have been a popular decision; keep in mind that public sentiment had become solidly against allowing guns in Starbucks thanks to the open-carry protesters.
 
Tom, what demonstration?

There was no demonstration.

They had their meeting, then they finished and went out to eat. They sent an unarmed guy in ahead who spoke with the manager. They then addressed to customers inside and let them know they were coming in so they wouldn't freak on seeing the guns. Then they came in, ordered, and ate. And that is all there was to it until MDA pushed Chipotle with their paid for media outlet who put up these really representative images of these "other people". And Chipotle caves and the story get's an update.

But there was no demonstration my friend. They didn't do anything wrong, not illegal, immoral, or even inconsiderate.
 
zincwarrior said:
Isn't that kind of what Starbucks did? I don't see signage or anything.
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In effect, yes. They asked people not to bring guns into their stores, but -- as far as I know -- that request didn't have the weight of law anywhere. All the request did was make it their policy to have the manager ask anyone who was open carrying to leave. If someone is concealed carrying, they won't ask you to leave because they don't know you're carrying.
 
http://aattp.org/meet-the-dangerous...ts-that-invaded-chipotle-with-their-blessing/
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Really Tom, this is the source of your information. I didn't have to read more then one minute and I spotted the first lie. The claim that the Open Carry Texas group went into a Jack in the Box and it scared the satff so they his in the freezer. Already proven false, a complete fabrication sent to the media in an email from a Ft. Worth cop and repeated on MDA's website. The news outlet retracted it after it was proven false by Chipotle management themselves but MDA likes it too much and keeps running it, and this website is all anti anyway so of course they won't correct it.

But you want to use these guys as a source of info for who this facebook posterboy is? Now I don't disagree that the photo is stupid, not debating that. But I also think Open carry Texas is being railroaded and I don't think we need to be hopping on the train.

I think this is not necessarily a case of the Open carry guys doing anything wrong as much as it is a case of their being targeted and attacked.
 
lcpiper said:
The claim that the Open Carry Texas group went into a Jack in the Box and it scared the satff so they his in the freezer. Already proven false, a complete fabrication sent to the media in an email from a Ft. Worth cop and repeated on MDA's website. The news outlet retracted it after it was proven false by Chipotle management themselves but MDA likes it too much and keeps running it, and this website is all anti anyway so of course they won't correct it.
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I think you may be missing the point here. It doesn't matter if the open carry guys are "right" and the antis are "wrong". It also doesn't matter if the antis are lying and spreading false information. This is politics. And in politics perception matters more than anything else. And, when it comes to carry in national chains, our side is losing. And we're losing because the open carry activists aren't good at swaying public opinion to their side; often they end up doing the opposite.

lcpiper said:
I think this is not necessarily a case of the Open carry guys doing anything wrong as much as it is a case of their being targeted and attacked.
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In the end, what's the difference? In politics you have to get your message across better than your opponent. And that's obviously not happening here.
 
Well You should all just give up then. I mean it, if even you guys who all seem to fully understand the situation inside and out are going to jump on them then there is no saving it right? just turn your guns over to the buy back programs and get it over with already.

This article is only representative of one thing, a well organized attack. If you can't see it then no one else will. And if you buy it on face value from a site like the one Tom linked to then whatever guys.
 
I open carry a sidearm once in awhile and have even walked into McDonalds with it strapped to my side. I did not brandish it, I did not pose with it, I got my damn meal and left. (I am also in a mostly kinda urban area.)

I did it because I was in a hurry and hungry, not to make a statement.

In my opinion these guys crossed the line from open carry proponents to complete idiots when they un-slung their weapons in a place where they did not need to.

I will continue to carry openly WHEN convenient, but I will also carry concealed when the better part of valor is discretion.

There's no need for Starbucks, etc. to go overboard and dictate "no guns". All they need to do is say that anyone displaying a firearm on the premises will be required to leave.
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I disagree. As a former business owner and as a manager of several others, I hated all the signs. You get so many dang signs in the window the message is lost. Maybe if it was posted on their website, but definitely not a sign.
 
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There was no demonstration. (...) And that is all there was to it until MDA pushed Chipotle with their paid for media outlet who put up these really representative images of these "other people".
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I never said this was part of a demonstration. OCT has, however, encouraged people to do this by their prior actions.

It doesn't matter how MDA spun it; it wouldn't have been an issue if those two people hadn't given them the ammo.
 
This article is only representative of one thing, a well organized attack. If you can't see it then no one else will.
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Agreed. But, a well organized attack means they planned way ahead for something like this. They waited until they got exactly what they were looking for - a bunch of folks open carrying in an eating establishment where they knew the business owners would shy away from conflict.

The Antis have learned that they need to be very well organized, wait...wait...wait, and then pick their battles very carefully. Our side got played. Some of us fell into an Anti trap and we all pay for it.

The side that is better organized and thinks several steps ahead of their actions wins the war. The Antis won that battle. It's done, over - we lost. Hopefully some of us have learned that we need to be more organized and better chess players than our Anti opponents.

Their irrational fear of guns and gun owners and pretend ignorance about firearms doesn't make them stupid. They have some very bright and powerful people on their side. So do we..............sometimes.
 
They wanted attention, they got it, we all pay the price. They have the maturity level of a bunch of five year old kids, but the same rights as the rest of us. If only they could handle it.

And Texas of all places? Like there wasn't a bbq joint that would have welcomed them without creating a scene? But I guess that a scene was the point.
 
They waited until they got exactly what they were looking for - a bunch of folks open carrying in an eating establishment where they knew the business owners would shy away from conflict.
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...and we willingly gave it to them.
 
Now we're going to have anti gun proponents walking into businesses everywhere with rifles just to get them to change their policies.
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Oh please. Treating your opposition as if they're evil malevolent tricksters just leads to more extremism.

People who are surprised by extremist actions haven't been paying attention.

Since the 1990's extremist language has been the norm on the pro-gun rights side. There has been an absolutist mindset that has brooked no opposition.
Absolutist language leads to absolutist actions actions.

As we saw in Utah recently there are people seeking to promote violent confrontation. Once again a natural outcome from past language and action.
 
How in the world can you fault Chipotle for this? Just like Starbucks, they only changed their policy because a bunch of tacticool morons decided to aggressively open carry loaded rifles in their stores as a "protest". I'm as pro-Second Amendment, pro-open-carry as they get, but -- just like Brian -- I'd ask people to stop open carrying in my store if I had a bunch of these idiots open carrying rifles and hurting business.
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Agreed. Idiot gun owners like those yahoos are our worst enemy.
 
Oh please. Treating your opposition as if they're evil malevolent tricksters just leads to more extremism.
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Umm, Buzzcook, what do you call it when a Police Officer emails the media and tells them
“They locked themselves inside a freezer for protection out of fear the rifle-carrying men would rob them”: Sgt. Ray Bush.
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And later the Owner of Jack'n the Box calls the same media outlet and explains that the employees were not alarmed, didn't call the cops, and didn't hide in the freezer at all?
http://victorygirlsblog.com/jack-in-the-box-part-2-moms-demand-action-pressures-chipotle-to-ban-guns/

Furthermore the media outlet refuses to change their story because the report came from a cop and the Owner of Jack'n the Box wasn't the actual source of the report.
http://twitchy.com/2014/05/10/open-carry-texas-helps-debunk-story-that-terrified-jack-in-the-box-employees-locked-themselves-in-freezer/

How is it we should think of these people then?
 
How is it we should think of these people then?
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I don't think very highly of them, and I don't trust them.

But that's not the point. What matters is public perception, and that's where we're losing. As far as John Q. Public knows it, those employees did hide in the freezer. He's going to read the headlines on the front page, not the retraction on page B14.

This is a battle of perception, and until we get that, we're going to keep losing.
 
Tom Servo said:
But that's not the point. What matters is public perception, and that's where we're losing. As far as John Q. Public knows it, those employees did hide in the freezer. He's going to read the headlines on the front page, not the retraction on page B14.

This is a battle of perception, and until we get that, we're going to keep losing.
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Exactly. There's a fundamental problem with open carry protests: The general public (especially in urban areas) is afraid of guns. They can ignore concealed carry, but open carry is different. Now, some argue that open carry protests -- when done properly -- help normalize guns to the general public and help our cause. Well, that's often argued about by gun-rights folks, but I think most of us agree that aggressive, in-your-face open carry protests have the opposite effect and are hurting our cause.

What I'm saying is that we have to be very careful how we go about this, because the general public is afraid of guns, and therefore the deck is already stacked against us. You can complain all you want about how the other side is lying and misleading the public, but if we're losing it simply means that our side isn't doing a good enough job getting our message across. And in some cases we're actively helping the other side.
 
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