Starbucks is under fire from anti-gun advocates for its policy of allowing patrons in states that permit open carrying of firearms to sip their espresso with guns on their hips. This has, of course, provoked the usual high dudgeon from Second Amendment supporters, NRA members, conservative media, and—who knows?—maybe a few postal workers getting ready to blow.
So everyone is arguing about rights. This isn’t about rights, however, or shouldn’t be. It concerns ethics, which is respect for others, responsible conduct, fairness, empathy and consideration. I just heard an open-carry advocate say, in a debate about the issue on the Laura Ingraham radio show, that his adversary was wrong when he said his young daughter has a right to drink Starbucks hot chocolate without being made anxious about a stranger carrying a gun.” “There is no such right,” he said, as Laura chimed in with her approval.
Correct. If we are talking about rights, there is no contest. In states where it is legal, people who have jumped through the necessary regulatory hoops can indeed go into Starbucks armed to the teeth.
It is still rude, inconsiderate, and disrespectful. It is wrong, and as in many aspects of human interaction, liberty gives you the right to do wrong. You have a right to lie within certain bounds. You have a right to be cruel and insulting, provided you don’t provoke tangible harm. You have a right not to bathe; you have a right to breathe garlic in people’s faces. You have a right to be a lousy neighbor, to never give a cent to charity, to never call your aged parents, to never express gratitude to people who help you, and to raise your children to be self-centered blights on society.
You have, in short, the right to be a jerk. And those who needlessly carry their legal guns into Starbucks, knowing it will make others there uncomfortable and their experience in the cafe less enjoyable, are fully exercising their right to be jerks. If, on the other hand, they wanted to be ethical, caring,respectful, responsible members of society—if, perhaps, they gave a damn about whether a little girl enjoys her hot chocolate—they could do the ethical thing and leave that Glock at home.
Starbucks obviously feels that it can make more money letting jerks exercise their rights to be jerks than catering to the sensitivities of little girls, and the many other people, including my late father, a combat veteran, who are made nervous by guns. The company has that right too.
My official position is that everyone in society has an obligation to let jerks know that we expect people to exercise their rights with due regard for others. That includes Starbucks, which would be helping the cause of building a more ethical and civil America if it told gun-toting, inconsiderate jerks that they need to choose between coffee and Second Amendment showboating.
Rights are wonderful. Exercising rights ethically is better.
Ethics Alarms 
Excellent piece, graphic example of the difference between ethics and rights. It’s a heavy burden to place on Starbucks, however, requiring baristas to refuse service–even admission–to heat-packing patrons. Maybe the solution is to arm the baristas.
I wouldn’t expect strict enforcement. A simple announcement that they aren’t welcome would do, I think.
How much of the “packers” attitude is guided by 1950s and 60s Westerns, where everyone, at least the main characters (inevitably seedy criminalist cowboys or their oppositional lawmen) are depicted as packing openly all the time, even in the saloons?
I honestly doubt the practice was in vogue even in the “Wild” West.
Yeah, sure. Somebody who wants to carry in Starbucks cares whether they’re welcome. The ones I’ve seen on TV hanging around tea party gatherings expect that the handgun makes them welcome.
Still the simple non-welcome announcement is worth making.
Remember the issue in Manassas a year or two back? Open-carry vigilantes went into a high-profile, very busy restaurant, guns on hips, specifically daring management to kick them out. Management did, citing their option to refuse service to any customer for any reason, noting that they were looking out for the comfort of their other patrons. (I recall a flurry of headlines and threats of lawsuits afterwards, but not the actual resolution.)
Me? I’m a non-gun-carrying minivan-driving mom, and every time I go into that pizza place I have at least two kids with me, frequently more. (In fact, this particular restaurant, with its low prices and popular food and very large tables hosts a LOT of kids’ sports team parties.) I would LEAVE if anyone not a uniformed peace officer came in with a gun, taking my money with me, and I am confident others would do the same. That goes for that pizza place, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, everywhere. If they insist, pretty soon gun carriers will find themselves all alone in these establishments, and shortly knocking upon locked doors of closed establishments.
I just don’t get it. Why do you need a gun in Starbucks anyway? And what kind of jerk goes out of his way to deliberately scare and upset the average coffee-drinker and pizza-eater?
That’s a great perspective, Lianne, and pretty much nails how I feel about it. I have nothing against guns, but a secure knowledge that some of the people who carry them shouldn’t be, and frankly the decision to carry a gun into a Starbucks is an indicator that such a gun owner falls into the “shouldn’t be” category.
Let them bring a picture of their guns with them, like with their kids, and show them to everyone who cares.
You should be permitted if you are say a law officer on duty. But there needs to be a sign up like “no shoes, no shirt, no service”… “no firearms permitted” (of which our local Starbucks do not have)
However, refusing service to those for gun rights, which has happened, is not right. Those who abuse firearms r the ones to obtain them illegally anyway. If you strip away our Constitutional right, we will be left subject to crime.
Thats exactly why I’m against open-carry. It makes people nervous, and nervous people are unpredictable. I believe in the 2nd amendment right to own and carry a firearm anywhere, but I obtained a concealed carry permit and thats the way I keep it, out of sight. A person need not make someone else feel uncomfortable while exercising their right to defend themselves.
George Washington didn’t open carry into local Starbucks, so you shouldn’t either.