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by Paul Helmke and Dennis Henigan

What would your reaction be if you and your kids walked into the local Starbucks and, while contemplating the choice between a latte and a mocha cappuccino, you noticed several fellow customers had semi-automatic pistols and ammunition magazines hanging from their hips?

This scenario has become more than a flight of imagination.  In several communities in California, and elsewhere, it has become reality.

Welcome to the “open carry” movement, an effort by “gun rights” extremists to foist their interpretation of the Second Amendment on the rest of us by openly carrying handguns in public places.  While virtually all states have at least some minimal restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons, few states do anything to regulate the “open carry” of firearms.

Particularly in the Bay Area in Northern California, “open carry” adherents have been gathering in Starbucks and other coffee shops and restaurants – their semi-automatic pistols and revolvers in plain view – apparently to make an ideological statement.

The sight of such gun-toters in Starbucks reminds us of the incidents last summer, when anti-Obama protestors appeared at political events and “town hall meetings” with handguns and assault rifles openly strapped to their bodies – including events attended by President Obama himself.

The “open carry” folks view this as “normalizing” their self-defined “right” to carry guns with them at all times wherever they please, regardless of its impact on public safety.  But what about the rights of everyone else who wishes to be free from lethal weapons in public places, except for trained law enforcement?

Surveys show that the presence of more guns in a community does not make people safer, or feel safer; indeed, it has the opposite effect.  Studies show that the more guns there are, the more gun violence there is in that location.  In addition, 80 percent of those who don’t own guns say they would feel less safe if more people in their community acquired guns; only eight percent would feel safer.  Even among gun owners, roughly equal proportions would feel less safe if more people had guns versus those who would feel more safe.

Take the reaction of one coffee shop customer in San Ramon, California when faced with a group of pistol packers:  “I’m scared.  I’m getting out of here.  They say they want to make a statement.  What’s wrong with a T-shirt?”

The “open carry” gatherings provoked an immediate reaction from Californians who were appalled that coffee shops and restaurants would allow guns on their premises.  At least two national chains have responded responsibly.

For example, Peet’s Tea & Coffee stated that its policy “is not to allow customers carrying firearms in our stores” unless they are uniformed law enforcement officers. It also indicated that it would post a notification of that policy in all its stores and would call the local police for assistance should a customer display a firearm in the future.

After being alerted by local chapters of the Brady Campaign about a scheduled “open carry” meeting at one its Northern California stores, California Pizza Kitchen issued a statement that it “does not allow guests other than uniformed officers to display firearms in our restaurants” because of its concern “that the open display of firearms would be particularly disturbing to children and their parents.”

But now we come to Starbucks. When asked about the company’s policy on the “open carry” of firearms in its stores, its Customer Relations Department responded to the Brady Campaign’s California chapters that “Starbucks does not have a corporate policy regarding customers and weapons; we defer to federal, state and local laws and regulations regarding this issue.”

Here’s the problem with that answer: generally speaking – and certainly in California – businesses have the right to bar guns on their premises.  It is their property and, just as they can prohibit entry by people with bare feet, they can do the same for people with guns.

Despite its response, Starbucks clearly does have a policy and it is one that should be deeply disturbing to the vast majority of its customers. 

Starbucks has apparently chosen to allow civilians to carry semi-automatic pistols and possibly even assault weapons into its stores.

Such a policy is disturbing to law enforcement officials as well as Starbucks patrons.  As a San Mateo County Sheriff’s Lieutenant put it, “Open carry advocates create a potentially very dangerous situation,” because when police respond to a “man with a gun” call, they have no idea what the intentions of the gun carrier are and “the result could be deadly.”

If a mistake in judgment or perception results in a shooting at a Starbucks, will the company still have no “corporate policy regarding customers and weapons”?

This is no idle consideration.  Just this past September, at a picnic hosted by “open carry” activists at a Michigan state park, a gun activist was charged with reckless use of a firearm after he unintentionally fired his semi-automatic handgun in a parking lot.  Then there was the California “open carry” activist in December who was arrested for carrying his .357 magnum revolver near a school, complaining, “I just can’t see what I did wrong.”

Even more disturbing was the man – “of high interest to the FBI because of his alignment with violent demonstrators at abortion clinics” – who was arrested for possession of a semi-automatic handgun which he was carrying openly outside a North Carolina abortion clinic last October.

As these and other incidents show, the “open carry” movement clearly has implications beyond Starbucks. It is part of a broader campaign, led by the National Rifle Association, to force guns into every corner of American society by “normalizing” the carrying of guns in public places, openly and concealed.

The gun pushers want an America where there is nowhere that you and your family can go to be free from guns.

As just one example, the same lawyer who won the U.S. Supreme Court case two years ago which declared a Second Amendment right to have a gun in your home for self defense, has filed a new lawsuit seeking to force localities to allow civilians to carry guns on the streets.

The “open” carrying of guns is just the visible tip of the “guns everywhere” iceberg.  The gun lobby’s clout in state legislatures has forced consideration of dangerous proposals to allow people to legally carry concealed weapons into bars, churches, workplace parking lots, airports, parks, college campuses and elsewhere.

While most states do not require any permit, license or training of any kind to carry a semi-automatic pistol openly, the NRA assures us that those who have permits to carry concealed weapons are all “law-abiding citizens” whose gun-toting behavior protects the rest of us.  Since May, 2007, however, these “law-abiding citizens” have killed at least 117 people, including nine law enforcement officers.  During that same period, they have committed eleven mass shootings.

So, Starbucks, what will it be?  Like Peets Tea & Coffee, will you do the socially responsible thing and stand up for the rights of families and children to be free from guns when they visit your coffee shops?

Or will you take the chance that there will be more than just shots of espresso being served up in your stores?

If you think Starbucks is wrong here, sign our petition today:

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/starbucks_guns/?rc=brady

For regular readers of the gun blogosphere, the meme of some gun advocates posing as “victims” of the so-called “bigtory” of people who disagree with them is not new.

Sebastian, for example, wrote a coda to Friday’s back-and-forth over a piece written last week by columnist Mark Morford, with Sebastian invoking the “bigotry” defense of gun advocates versus people who effectively argue against them.

In fact, the notion of “bigotry” is perhaps the pillar upon which the National Rifle Association itself has built its whole bogus empire.  That is: “Aren’t you mad at those coastal elites who look down their noses at you and your ‘way of life’?  You should be mad as hell.  GET MAD AS HELL AT THOSE ELITES!  Donate to us today.”

That’s basically the NRA’s pitch in a nutshell.

Some adherents of this mantra have taken it to bizarre extremes, in fact, likening their position to African-Americans in the Civil Rights movement.  No, not kidding.  Look at this latest stemwinder by Joe from Idaho.  (Note to Joe, Brady blog posts under the NewsWatch label are by Brady staff other than Paul Helmke.  Paul posts under his own name.)

In order to think this way, the key assumption such gun advocates have to make is that their guns and gun use are functionally identical to race, or sexual orientation — such that one’s status as a gun advocate is essentially an immutable characteristic.

From that flows the conclusion that anyone who disagrees with the effects of their gun advocacy — such as forcing families and children to accept semi-automatic pistols or assault weapons in the local Starbucks or other restaurant — is the same as those who refused service to African-Americans at a Woolworth’s lunch counter.

It is mind-boggling, but you’ve got to hand it to them: It takes a very skilled strategist to perform the social ju-jitsu necessary to turn what is, in essence, armed political bullying into victimization (after community members reject their tactics) and get others to nod their heads in agreement.

The truth, of course, is that guns and gun carrying are obviously not immutable characteristics of people, and that the whole cultural framework around the issue of gun violence prevention is a sham. (Brady Center Vice-President Dennis Henigan has exposed this most recently here and here.)

Guns are guns.  They are tools designed to kill people, and are clearly the best tool for the job.  In America each year guns are used to fulfill their function 30,000 times, while injuring another 80,000.

Yet regardless of what NRA propaganda might have us believe, Americans are not born with guns in our hands, and the regulation of where guns can be carried; what kinds of guns should be out of civilian hands; how guns should be stored; and whether suspected terrorists, felons, fugitives, wife-beaters or the dangerously mentally ill should be screened out of the gun-buying process by the strongest possible background check, have absolutely nothing to do with “culture” or “bigotry.”

It has everything to do with public safety, public health and common sense.

That, of course, is why gun advocates who oppose gun regulation of any kind — led by NRA strategists — do all they can to cloak themselves in the mantle of “civil rights,” pretend they’ve suffered trials even remotely equivalent to racial segregation and homophobia, and pose as “victims” of “bigotry” whenever people interested in a peaceful community free from the constant presence of guns so powerfully and effectively call out gun advocates on their political bully tactics.

There will always be some individuals who dislike other individuals for who they are.  But when it comes to gun policy in this country, calling for a gun violence prevention safety net is not hatred for people with guns.

It is a hatred for the effects of guns in the hands of dangerous people who never should have had them in the first place, bound to the deep empathy we have for victims and survivors of gun violence who will never get their loved ones back, and fueled by a fierce determination to reduce as many of those horrific stories as we possibly can.

Currently, gun advocates — led by the National Rifle Association — are standing in the way of that progress.

This past Wednesday, columnist Mark Morford helped explain — in the satirical voice of a business owner — why “open carry” advocates advancing the gun lobby’s agenda by parading their guns into the local coffee shop is a really stupid idea.

An instant classic, his article is appropriately titled, “Hi! Come in! Please, no murdering“:

…Clearly, you are not a police officer. Therefore, the management, our employees and pretty much everyone within a 100-mile radius would very much appreciate it if you would put away that ego-fluffing man-toy that is designed solely to kill other living creatures and induce fear and ignorance as it regresses every hesitant advancement in the human soul back to caveman grunting lunkishness. Thank you again!

Oh, please do not misunderstand! We are all terribly impressed. It is so very patriotic of you to show off your little popper! Are you in a gang? Are you a drug dealer? Are you going to shoot some scary terrorists, Mr. pallid paranoid Constitution-misquoting videogame-addicted guy? Protect all of us here in the casual neighborhood coffee shop from those crazy liberals and their health care reform and organic pretzels? Thank you so much! But really, I think we’ll be OK without your little display. Enjoy your frappucino, won’t you?

What, no drink? You now wish to order nothing at all and instead plop yourself down in the corner, plug in your laptop and angrily scour Facebook all day for evidence that your ex-girlfriend, the one who left you two years ago at a full, what-the-hell-was-I-thinking sprint, is now dating a liberal or a pacifist or an atheist and is far, far happier than she ever was with you? We understand. We appreciate your desire to partake of our free Wi-Fi, buy nothing and not give a damn that we can’t really stay in business that way.

Why, look at you! Refusing to step away from the counter and instead choosing to read aloud from your little card that says how it’s completely legal to carry an unconcealed, unloaded firearm in a public space! Way to stand up for your rights! God bless America!

Turns out you are right. It is legal, sort of. Then again, so is eating gravel, wearing a giant hat made of cow manure and squirrel tails, and slapping yourself in the face repeatedly while ranting semicoherently about Jesus, masturbation and Shania Twain. And you don’t see anyone doing that, do you? Except Carl over there?…

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UPDATE:

Looks like Mr. Morford hit a nerve with Sebastian over at SnowFlakesInHell.  Sebastian calls him — wait for it — “a piece of intolerant garbage” because “Morford… doesn’t like people shoving their Second Amendment rights in his face.”

Point of clarification:  What Morford and thousands of other Americans don’t like is people shoving guns into their and their children’s faces.  The Second Amendment says exactly zero about the “right” to carry semi-automatic pistols and assault weapons into coffee shops and restaurants.

Furthermore, any fair reading of his piece shows Morford was not characterizing “gun owners” as a group.  He was making a statement about a subset of non-law enforcement gun owners who want to “normalize” the idiotic behavior of carrying weapons into places where pistols and rifles don’t belong — like coffee houses and restaurants.

Finally, Sebastian plays the sexual orientation card in trying to make his point, a tactic perhaps not unexpected among other gun advocates but — based on his past posts — is beneath his standard level of argument.

If anything, it shows how close to the truth Morford’s biting take on this “open carry” phenomenon really is.

In fact, Sebastian himself would seem to agree — on the politics of such behavior at least, if not the principle.

UPDATE 2:

Last post on this thread.  Sebastian clarifies his point here.

The key reply is that clothing which some find offensive is different from firearms that others — justifiably — find frightening.  That is: pants aren’t guns, and being gay doesn’t kill people.  Not sure if CDC counts how many Americans die by strange-looking pants each year, but if they do, chances are the number will be a lot less than 30,000 (the number shot to death every year in this country).

Being concerned about lethal weaponry in the hands of people with no law enforcement training inside a coffee shop patronized by families with kids is simply not in the same universe as outlandish behavior at a “gay pride fair”. They aren’t even remotely comparable.

The only way these two arguments could be reconciled is if Morford were making an argument about the political ineffectiveness of open carry.  He’s clearly not doing that. His argument is about people having to make life-and-death decisions because they walk into the wrong coffee shop in the morning, one populated by armed gun activists more concerned about themselves than about the people around them.  It is the fact that Morford did it so effectively that is irksome to certain gun advocates.

This isn’t about “intolerance” of some sort of “victimized” open carry gun advocate minority.  It’s about the rest of the community not wanting to get shot because they went to Starbucks — a company that has yet to say, “Unless you are a police officer, no guns allowed in our stores.”

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If you have an extra minute today, please sign our petition asking Starbucks to keep its stores — and the families and children who visit them — free from guns:

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/starbucks_guns/?rc=brady

Could it be that the culture war over guns is more myth than reality? Yes, according to a recent article by the oddest of political couples, Republican messaging guru Frank Luntz and Democratic Mayor and gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett of Milwaukee.

In an op-ed appearing in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Luntz and Barrett support their striking conclusion by citing Luntz’s survey for Mayors Against Illegal Guns, of which Barrett is a member, showing strong support among gun owners, and even among NRA members, for measures to strengthen our gun laws. For example, 69% of self-described NRA members, and 86% of gun owners who do not belong to the NRA, support closing the “gun show loophole,” by extending Brady Law background checks to private sales at gun shows. As Luntz and Barrett say, “the poll also found support among NRA members and other gun owners for numerous other policies to strengthen safety, security and law enforcement,” including blocking gun sales to persons on the terrorist watch list, requiring gun owners to report lost and stolen guns, and providing more crime gun data to local police.

To be sure, the Luntz poll found gun owners strongly supportive of Second Amendment rights. But the point is that even NRA members see stronger gun laws to protect public safety as entirely consistent with the Second Amendment. When significant proportions of supposedly opposing cultural groups support the same policies then, as Luntz and Barrett suggest, “the culture war over the right to bear arms isn’t much of a war after all.”

As I have observed elsewhere, talking about guns as a “cultural” issue is a way of framing the issue that is highly beneficial to the NRA. The core of the gun lobby’s strategy is to use fear tactics to keep gun owners in a constant state of agitation so that they can be activated to oppose even modest gun law reforms. The NRA needs gun owners to believe that the debate is not “really about” such reforms as background checks at gun shows, but rather is about a sustained attack on a personal possession that has great practical and symbolic significance for millions of Americans and is, ultimately, about the values of those gun-owning Americans.

In short, the NRA needs the debate to be about banning the guns used by Americans for hunting and self-defense. If, on the other hand, the debate focuses on the pros and cons of specific reforms to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, the NRA is on shaky ground because its own members actually support many of those reforms on the merits. That, of course, is why the NRA is so threatened by the Luntz survey.

In this context, it is interesting to contemplate the likely impact of the landmark Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller striking down the D.C. handgun ban as unconstitutional. As an interpretation of the meaning of the Second Amendment, Justice Scalia’s majority opinion in Heller is indefensible. However, by creating a new personal right to a gun in the home for self-defense, the Court took handgun bans “off the table” (in Justice Scalia’s words) as a policy alternative. If broad gun bans are “off the table,” there is reason to believe that, over the long term, it will be more and more difficult for the NRA to sell gun owners on the idea that any strengthening of our gun laws is but a step down the “slippery slope” to gun confiscation. The “culture war” framing of the issue then will begin to dissolve and the NRA’s fear tactics will become less and less effective.

Don’t expect the NRA to abandon its reliance on the fear of gun bans – it is not clear that the gun lobby knows any other way of arguing its case. And, admittedly, it may take years before the impact of the Heller decision on the gun debate is fully felt. The NRA has shown remarkable skill so far in convincing gun owners that President Obama is plotting to get their guns, even though, in his first year in office the President earned a grade of “F” from the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence by doing nothing to put our nation on the path to common sense gun laws, and even signing into law several pieces of NRA-supported legislation. But when someone like Frank Luntz, who was seated in the front row as the President recently sparred with House Republicans, is ready to proclaim that “the culture war over guns is more myth than reality,” there is reason to believe that Heller’s potential to reframe the gun issue may be realized.

For more information, see Dennis Henigan’s new book, Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths that Paralyze American Gun Policy.

Anymore, incidents of so-called “law-abiding citizens” with state-issued permits to carry concealed weapons shooting and killing their fellow citizens are becoming so commonplace as to merit special mention only in particularly noteworthy examples.

The Fort Hood terrorist shooter is a recent example.

The Appomattox mass killer is an even more recent one.

Then yesterday, the Salt Lake Tribune reported a 70-year-old woman has been arrested for shooting and killing a 34-year-old Head Start teacher, the single mother of two children, outside the teacher’s school:

On Friday, 70-year-old Mary Nance Hanson went looking for Tetyana Nikitina carrying a loaded gun, police said.

About 3 p.m., she found the 34-year-old teacher outside the Head Start school where she worked.

Hanson fired five shots from her .38-caliber revolver as Nikitina sat behind the wheel of her Dodge Mangum, killing her.

As the single mother of two bled, Hanson called 911 from the corner of the parking lot and told dispatchers she had just shot the woman. When asked why, Hanson replied she did not know and that was all she was going to say.

And on Friday night, she still wasn’t talking, said Unified Police Lt. Don Hutson.

“That is still a mystery to us. What may have tipped her over the edge, why the timing, that is not clear,” Hutson said. “I’m not sure we’re going to know that until the time comes for trial, because she’s not explaining.”

…

Police say Hanson shot at least five bullets. Nikitina was struck in the head, and her car rolled into a parked minivan. Hutson said police found five shell casings in the parking lot and five bullets in the pistol’s cylinder, noting that Hanson had reloaded the gun.

Hutson said some teachers in the school saw the shooting. Angela Crosby, a parent who was taking a child-development class at the Head Start building, heard the shots.

“When I looked out the window, the lady was in the corner” of the parking lot, Crosby said.

Crosby said Hanson was pointing to herself. Police forcibly took her to the ground, Crosby said, and took her gun. Hanson had a gash on her forehead when she was placed in a police car about an hour later.

Hanson had a concealed firearm permit issued or renewed three months ago, Hutson said….

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Just to be clear: the State of Utah just gave an accused killer — a so-called “law-abiding citizen” — permission to carry a revolver used in the shooting death of a Head Start teacher and single mother.

Apparently Utah thought that was good policy.

(Do you hear that?  Yes, that’s the NRA’s deafening silence.)