There won't be any guns carried by the shareholders attending today's annual meeting of the Starbucks Coffee Company (NASDAQ: SBUX). It's not allowed. Guns aren't allowed in the company's corporate headquarters, either. And employees in its more than 8,000 company-owned stores aren't allowed to bring guns to work.
But the company says it's okay for customers to bring guns into its stores, in any state - and this includes nearly all of them - "open carry" or "carry of concealed weapons" is allowed by law. This has drawn criticism from my organization, as well as attention this week from the characters of the much-beloved comic strip Doonesbury.
Last week, I sent a letter to the company's ten largest institutional investors, asking them to ask about Starbucks' dangerous policy, perhaps during a coffee break during the annual meeting. What I told the investors was simple: incidents have been occurring, with growing frequency, where gun owners, seeking to "make a statement" about their "gun rights", are openly carrying their weapons into more and more public places. These gatherings of armed individuals have provoked a strong and adverse reaction from members of the public who legitimately feel endangered by the proliferation of guns. In response, at least two national chains -- Peet's Coffee & Tea and California Pizza Kitchen -- announced policies to bar entry by persons who are armed.
We launched a petition inviting Americans to ask Starbucks to bar guns from its stores. Starbucks, however, has decided to allow guns. While the company has stated "Starbucks will comply with local laws and statutes in all the communities we serve," this evades the real issue. The law does not require Starbucks to allow guns in its stores. A "no guns" policy would comply with applicable law. The issue is not the law; the issue is Starbucks' policy.
According to the company's Standards of Business Conduct, posted on its website, "Partners [employees] may not have or possess any weapon while in a Starbucks store, plant or on other Starbucks property." No law requires Starbucks to implement such an employee policy; it does so presumably because it recognizes the dangers posed by guns on its business premises. Why is it any less dangerous to allow customers -- about whom Starbucks knows far less -- to bring guns into its stores?
Dangerous guns shouldn't be brought into public places like restaurants unless they're brought in by trained law enforcement professionals. Starbucks has an intelligent 'no guns' policy for its annual meetings, its corporate headquarters and its employees. It should have the same policy for its customers.
So, Paul, you have tried repeatedly to prevent certainly laws that you don't like from passing, only to fail miserably.
So, you turn your focus to private companies that choose to honor and adhere to these laws, which you don't like. You try to coerce them (and others) into changing their corporate policy to reject these these laws, by attempting to harm their business investments and relations.
So, who are the "extremists" again?
You know..the one that has proven hazardous to....well....nobody...
We won, you lost, Starbucks doesn't want to play, now let's get to work.
Many ways to prove that more frequent carry and more common guns in the hands of law-abiding people save lives and promote a more peaceful society.
Provably many times more legitimate gun defenses against crime by civilians, than wrongful deaths by guns, and provable that civilians who use guns in defense are fractionally less likely than police to use their guns wrongly or cause undue harm.
Accepted well-established in law that the police have to legal requirement to come to your aid, and cannot be held responsible if they fail to help you. I don't hear the BC or VPC trying to change that, so their position is that citizens are dangerous untrustworthy animals, who are also worthless sheep which aren't really worth protecting or helping, after we've taken away the right or ability to protect themselves.
Go ahead and brand everyone as untrustworthy and unreliable and potentially criminally insane. No guns, put us on "no-fly" lists for no good reason and with no vetting of the lists.
Remember, we're all safer if we let the government control us and take away our rights. We're to rely on the government to keep us safe (unles it decides we're not worth it).
Don't try to take care of yourself, even in so basic a way as to protect your own life.
You're not qualified.
Almost laughable, except that he's serious...
I'll write letters to the local stores and corporate HQ for Starbucks, to change these policies:
Their employees and maybe especially managers, should have CCW permits and carry on the job.
It's fundamentally unjust to say their employees who might be legal to open or conccealed carry anywhere else, should be made less safe while at work.
I hate to split hairs, but can you really be a "national chain" when you only have stores in 6 states?
Why not spot light us whining and complaining like spoiled brats who couldn't have that candy bar in aisle #7? Why not show us kicking and screaming?
Oh yeah, I forgot...we respect a businesses decision.
Just wondering.
I also wonder whether or not the shareholders noticed.
Here is to Paul, in the hopes that Starbucks never gives in to this fringe wack-o group.
I think they're just trying to keep their name in the news; they don't have a stategy anymore beyond avoiding total obscurity.
You are forgetting to mention to you followers that the majority of business in the US allow (and have for some time) carrying guns onto their premises, whether carried openly or concealed. Many states have varying rules regarding carrying guns in establishments that sell/serve alcohol, excluding these businesses, many franchise companies allow it.
You must know you are fighting a loosing battle; you leave out pertinent information (see above) and rally your followers around fears you fabricate. The Brady Campaign used fear and pictures of black guns to pass the Assault Weapons Ban. The weapons and accessories banned did nothing to stop gun violence, as only law abiding citizens complied.
If Starbucks will begin to be the scene of gun battles, and shoot ups, why was it not the place of gun battles before? They allowed guns previously, it just wasn't in the media. You dismay of the Assault Weapons Ban expiring in 2004 must have been great. I would imagine that your dismay in 2010 is even greater when FBI statistics show no surge in 'machine gun' shoot outs and guerrilla warfare in our neighborhoods.
Paul, i think you are fabricating stories and information in order to keep your figurehead position at the Brady Campaign. You and the VPC are soon to outed for manipulation and fear mongering!
Shhhhhh!!!! Keep it down. You're going to wake his target audience!
You have lost.
...earlier this month, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist - a potential running mate for John McCain - ignored that opposition, AND CONCERNS FOR PROPERTY RIGHTS, and signed his state's guns-at-work bill into law. (emphasis mine).
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-helmke/the-gun-lobby-tries-to-fo_b_98628.html
Where is Doug Pennington? Can we get Doug Pennington in here to clear up a Brady Campaign discrepancy??
Doug, one of the arguments the Brady's used in opposition to the "guns in the workplace" legislation was that "forcing" a business to allow guns on their property infringed upon their private property rights. However, the Brady's argument in opposition to Starbucks current policy is that Starbucks should be forced to ban guns from their property, even when the current policy is lawful.
Can we get clarification on this?
Honestly, I just want to hear from Doug Pennington. I miss him. ;)
I beseech you to factaciously support this argumentation.
In full accordance with state and local laws and there haven't been any problems, despite the predictions by you of wild west shootouts.
As for the difference in restrictions on employees and customers, employees are subject to terms of employment and they are not how Starbucks makes its money. It is not at all uncommon for businesses to require employees to adhere to rules which are not required of customers.
Maybe it is time you got back out into the business sector instead of the special interest group lobbiest sector.
By Paul's "logic", customers should also wear Starbuck's uniforms before entering the store.
And I think that Starbucks, in standing up against Paul and all the hoplophobes, is being anything but weak kneed.
BTW, you probably stand next to people who are carrying firearms when you go to the grocery, the mall, or other places in public. You probably just aren't aware of it and that has probably been the case for a decade or two.
Starbucks has enacted no policy regarding the carrying of firearms. Please explain why you are lying. Please explain also whether you patronize the majority of multi-state customer-service based businesses in the United States, given that the majority of such businesses also have enacted no policy regarding the carrying of firearms on store establishments.
Mr. Helmke has failed to mention that the majority of restaurants, grocery stores, retail outlets and other customer-service based businesses are no different than Starbucks in not prohibiting the possession of firearms by patrons who carry firearms lawfully. That Mr. Helmke has willfully omitted such information from his issued statements suggests to me that he is attempting to mislead his audience.