On August 10 of last year, a protester showed up at the site of a New Hampshire presentation by the President of the United States openly carrying a 9mm semiautomatic handgun and carrying a sign inspired by the Thomas Jefferson quote that "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
That evening, the protester was asked by Chris Matthews on the MSNBC news program Hardball whether his gun had been loaded.
He responded," Wow. Who would be silly enough to carry an unloaded firearm?"
Yesterday, at the annual meeting of shareholders of the Starbucks Coffee Company, where "the issue of Starbucks allowing guns in stores came up repeatedly during a question-and-answer session," the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of the company made a glaring mistake in discussing Starbucks' gun policy with his shareholders.
He said the guns being brought into Starbucks stores are all unloaded.
"I do want to clarify something you said that is not right," he told one shareholder. "You can't walk into Starbucks with a loaded gun. So that's not the issue. The issue is, the law allows you to walk in with a weapon that people can see that is unloaded."
I was shocked by the mistake, but also saddened by my recollections of how many times a similar phrase - "I thought the gun was unloaded" - is heard after a tragic shooting.
Ask Griffin Dix, a friend of mine, and a former member of the Board of Trustees of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. His son. Kenzo Dix, died on May 29, 1994, when his 15-year-old friend thought the gun was unloaded.
In Tennessee, three days before Christmas last year, a teen was killed by another "unloaded gun."
"They were handling or examining it for some reason," the sheriff said. "Evidently, they thought it was unloaded. The 16-year-old pulled the trigger and the bullet hit the 19-year-old in the forehead and killed him."
One of my best friends from grade school still has the bullet in his back from the summer after ninth grade, when someone said "let's scare Scott" and thought the gun was unloaded.
A month after I was elected Mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana, one of our police recruits - whose family I knew - was killed in a training exercise because the training officer mistakenly thought he had unloaded his gun.
I could go on and on.
Mr. Schultz, you were wrong. Someone on your staff may have misled you, or maybe they don't understand how weak our gun laws are in this country, but only two states, California and Utah, require that "open carried" guns be unloaded. In 44 states, including your home state of Washington, the guns not only can be loaded, but almost certainly are loaded. Remember that Presidential protester's statement: "who would be silly enough to carry an unloaded gun?"
There is a growing segment of radical extremists who want to carry their guns anywhere. Some of them see themselves as an armed front guard fighting policies that they oppose, and some believe, as NRA head Wayne LaPierre said recently, "the guys with the guns make the rules."
And these people now have a favorite store brand: Starbucks.
It's time that the company change its policy. Before one of those "unloaded guns" causes another tragedy.
Remember the LIRR shooting? Colin Furguson walked down a commuter railroad car choosing his victims at random. Everyone was powerless to stop him. If ONE person in that car was armed it would have ended. Sometimes a well trained good citizen with a gun is all you have between life and death.
A 2009 study found 70 percent of shop owners reported more female buyers.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/30/more-females-may-be-turning-to-firearms
Just wow.
It seems the NRA-inspired Hutarees had a wedding. Photos here:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/for_hutaree_militia_ethos_extended_to_family_life.php?ref=fpa
This merry band of NRA adherents also had ranks.
RADOK [RD]
BORAMANDER [BM]
ZULIF [ZL]
ARKON [AK]
GOLD RIFLEMAN [GR]
SILVER RIFLEMAN [SR]
BRONZE RIFLEMAN [BR]
LUKORE [LK]
MASTER GUNNER [MG]
SENIOR GUNNER [SG]
GUNNER [GN]
DJCRLSN [DJC]
I am curious; for what reason do you continue to make such demonstrably false claims?
Are you under the mistaken impression that relying upon fictional assertions as a means of supporting your position is a valid form of argumentation, or is your position devoid of merit that you are unable to support it through actual factual statements? Or, if I may speculate, do you perhaps feel a psychological compulsion to repeatedly issue statements that are incongruent with reality?
http://www.snowflakesinhell.com/2010/03/29/iowa-rtc-bill-passes-both-houses
And the BC is fighting to keep firearms out of individual stores.
http://nssf.typepad.com/keaneinsights/2010/03/80-percent-of-americans-say-states-localities-are-bound-by-second-amendment-.html
A close reading of his comments -- any reading of his comments -- shows that his essential point was not the guns were or were not loaded. His point was that "the law allows" people to carry them, and Starbucks isn't looking to overstep the legislature by coming up with inconsistent rules.
The gaff is actually understandable. My best guess is that Starbucks' management is sick and tired of having the Brady Campaign trying to politicize coffee sales, and that their primary focus is on dealing with Brady, not articulating the fine points of state-by-state handgun laws.
I want to see how much your donations are down.
That's really what this is all about. The Brady Center hasn't won anything significant in the courts or legislature for nearly a decade. Their minimal wins during the Clinton years, such as the 1994 AWB and national waiting period for handgun purchases, have expired or been overturned.
They thought Obama would be their savior: I. E. puppet who would do their bidding. But it hasn't turned out that way. Instead, Obama has looked at the skyrocketing gun purchases and CCW applications since his election and wisely decided that more gun control laws would not be the popular thing to go after.
So they have to resort to manufacturing "incidents" (events where no one gets hurt and no laws are broken) in a desperate attempt to get their face on camera. The anti-gun media has been happy to oblidge them. But the American people have not. The Brady Bunch is still an irrelevent fringe group, and no amount of attacking Starbucks or other lawful buisinessess will change that.,
I actually don't think they did. I think that President Obama's failure to take harsh antigun positions during the campaign was expression enough that regardless of whether President Obama personally likes or dislikes guns, he was not going to be burning political capital passing pointless "feel good" gun laws. That is why, after the campaign, the Brady website was replete with stuff about how the 2008 de-election of George W. Bush and the GOP was actually a "legislative mandate" for gun control. Unfortunately, CNN wasn't getting its digs from the BC website, and so the "President Obama was elected to restrict people's gun rights" spin never went anywhere.
My point: We should not assume that President Obama is going to jeopardize our rights and freedoms merely because he is a Democrat, any more than the BC should assume that he will. And (for emphasis) the worst, permanent gun ban to be enacted in recent years was enacted by President George H.W. Bush.
Wait........wha........what was the question?????
"Remind us all which gun laws restrict District Attorneys from doing their job"
There are quite a few. But let's take our favorite: lying on a 4473.
Supposed to be a felony if you do. Unfortunately, the NRA has rendered the law useless by adding the clause that it must be proven someone "knowingly lied" on the form. As any law student will tell you, it is virtually impossible to prove anybody "knowingly lied" about anything. In fact, about the only way you can get a "knowingly lied" conviction is by having somebody confess. That's why fewer than 5% of all cases involving lying on a 4473 ever get prosecuted.
Of course, there's always the Tiahrt Amendment which essentially forbids law enforcement agencies from sharing data on gun-related crimes.
It's kind of a joke to stomp your feet and demand criminals get locked up and have the key thrown away when you're doing everything possible to ensure criminals never get prosecuted.
Of course, Jade, you know that you are lying! ‘Tiahrt’ has been hashed and rehashed over and over again on these very pages and the provision in no form, fashion or manner ties the hands of law enforcement!
Old SF MJT
jade, is this a game!? OK, I'll play....
I counted 3 unsubstantiated statements, 2 outright lies, and 1 error in fact due to lack of knowledge on the subject.
Can anyone beat my score?
This wouldn't be a case where it would have been a law that denied victims the means to defend themselves (taking the blame away from the business). In fact, the laws in place would have allowed self-defense and it would be Starbucks that is denying people the means and ability to defend themselves.
Legal Requirements for Negligence:
1. Duty of care
2. Breach of duty
3. Direct cause
4. Actual damages
Arguments could go either way as to the existence and the degree of negligence Starbucks would have, given the four requirements above. But Starbucks can avoid the possibility of negligence all together by continuing to defer itself to the current Federal, State and local laws.
There are so many falsehoods and misrepresentations here it is breathtaking.
As BE well knows, every firearm that ends up in the hands of the unlawful, mentally ill, and violent starts out in the very same place the "law-abiding" get them. In fact, these firearms are often provided to criminals by the "law-abiding."
Yet, folks like BE--presumably 'law-abiding"--favor measures that make it far more difficult for the criminals to get firearms. But then they have the unmitigated chutzpah to claim the Brady Campign isn't concentrating on the crooks.
This is laughable--it's like demanding law enforcement crack down on speeders while at the same time demanding the police not patrol the roads or use radar to catch speeders.
In fact, BE and his presumably "law-abiding" cohorts favor legislation which directly benefits criminals and the violent---yet has no bearing or impact on anyone who is truly "law-abiding." By favoring legislation that makes it illegal for law enforcement to share info on suspected gun-related criminal activity, criminals gains a tremendous advantage.
"folks like BE...have the unmitigated chutzpah to claim the Brady Campign isn't concentrating on the crooks."
Ummm, the OP is primarily about holders of carry licenses, not "crooks."
I hold an NC carry license. As I have mentioned elsewhere, in order to obtain it, I passed multiple Federal and state background checks (including an FBI fingerprint check), a mental health records check, had to take a refresher class on self-defense law and pass a test on same, and demonstrate competence with a handgun on a shooting range. I am most demonstrably NOT a "crook", yet the BC has expended considerable time, money, and political capital demonizing the 6 million or so CHL holders like me. That is not "concentrating on the crooks."
The other recent focus of the Brady Campaign's efforts has been banning modern-looking rifles. Since these are the most popular civilian rifles in the United States but are rarely used in violent crimes (all rifles accounted for 2.6% of homicides and falling, at last count), that effort isn't "concentrating on the crooks" either.
The truth is, the majority of the gun-control lobby's recent campaigns have been targeted primarily at lawful gun ownership and use, rather than focusing narrowly on criminal misuse. Until that changes, gun-control activists will continue their slide into irrelevance.
"A Bethlehem man was sentenced Thursday to 18 months in prison for buying guns for others from a store in Whitehall Township.
David Colon purchased five handguns between April 2004 and December 2006 from the Army & Navy store at 1045 Grape St. Prosecutors said Colon signed the Firearm Transaction Record claiming the guns were for him.
Four of the guns were 9 mm pistols and one was a .45-caliber pistol. Four guns remain missing, prosecutors said, while one was found in 2007 in New York City in the possession of a Bronx man arrested on a drug charge."
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a3_5guns.7218519mar26,0,3068622.story
The Brady's want to close this "dangerous gun show loophole" because of Straw Purchases. But look at the lenient sentences criminals like Colon get for being CONVICTED of straw purchasing. 18 months! All too often we see the REAL causes of violent crime in our society; failure to incarcerate criminals.
But instead of focusing on these lenient sentences and the failure of our judicial system to keep criminals incarcerated, the Bradys would rather attack law-abiding gun owners and businesses.
Sad.
18 months for 5 straw purchases.
3.6 months per charge.
Maximum sentence would be 50 years.
In Tennessee, three days before Christmas last year, a teen was killed by another "unloaded gun.""
---
Wow Paul, did these tragedies happen in a Starbucks?
The issue is still whether Starbucks should honor State and Federal laws that allow lawful gun owners to carry their firearms (open or concealed) in Starbucks' cafes, isn't it? Or did we switch gears to how firearms should be stored in private homes?
In Killeen Brady helped pass laws that disarmed Susanna Hupp and allowed 42 people to be killed or injured. Suzanna was obeying "common sense gun laws," when she left her firearm in her car. She watched as her mom and dad died that day.
Brady helped attack a household in DC. One of the women did what the Brady Campaign said to do, she called 911... she was heard talking and they raped her as well... for about three days.
In Chicago the disarmed teachers were helpless when a gang driveby started targeting kids. The teachers could have saved most of the kids.
They disarmed the teachers Columbine. Had they been armed that day, the teachers could have stopped the slaughter.
They've taken the training away, and left kids wondering what the big heavy noisemaker is. Had the Brady Campaign supported common sense training classes and education kids would be safer.
But they KNOW that they are increasing the violence! Because their ultimate goal is to remove guns from the hands of everyone. In order to do that, they have to generate negative gun press, and what does it matter if a few innocents get killed... it's for the greater good... right? Right?
It's what they do.
You mean like, immediately following the Virginia Tech shooting, when the Brady Campaign redesigned their website to add custom created graphics and buttons ( "donate now") that used the Virginia Tech massacre as 'fundraising drive' ?