Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for December 21, 2013

“…and forget about a tip.”

just so you don’t shoot anybody for messing up an order

I had to laugh at DavidHuieGreen’s post. :)

If starbucks lost the pro gun folks, it would Seriously Hurt their bottom line… and they are savvy enough to realize that. So there is Not a Big deal made about guns in their stores.

When you ask for a shot, be very clear you mean espresso.

I’m so grateful to live in a place where the concept of carrying guns in pubic is seen as insane.

What is it with Americans and guns? Why on earth should anyone other than the police or military be allowed to walk around carrying a gun? Crazy.

@theoldprofessor: “carrying guns in pubic” is seen as insane in a lot of places. I think it’s also pretty unsafe, but maybe that’s what floats your boat. Just don’t ask me to reload for you.

I’ve been boycotting Starbucks for several months now over this issue. They may need the customers who carry guns, but I have plenty of alternatives for coffee.

There’s nothing wrong with guns! Loading them with bullets is where the problems start.

Rio Grande is one of my favorite John Wayne movies. (Not too many in that category.)Nice connection between “grande” drinks and a hard-core pro-gunfighting, etc., genre of movies.

Ha ha. They think they’re going to settle the gun debate in a comic strip comments section. I pity da fools.

great summary of the situation, thanks

For once a reasonably civil conversation … being a gun owner with a concealed carry permit, I would like to add that the dangerous individuals are the ones who don’t bother complying with the law.I honestly don’t know how effective the background check is, but I do know that it is possible (even easy) to buy firearms without complying with the laws.The criminals who carry without permission and rob and kill people with their illegal weapons are the ones I fear.I have NO pre-conceptions about skin color or ethnicity, but I feel strongly that I should be able to defend myself.By the way, I have had to protect myself twice in my life (fortunately without actually shooting anyone) and I think things have gotten a LOT more dangerous in the intervening 40 years or so.End of rant … thanks for reading.

The problem is that many people in the U.S. feel that if someone threatens you, or you think they might threaten you, or offends you or looks at you wrong, shooting him should be your first line of defense, rather than the last.

What keeps me out of a store is its rewards card program. If anyone can walk in with or without a card and buy something at the same price, fine. If the ginger ale costs $6.00 instead of 4.50, because I don’t have their card, how is that significantly different from saying, “Low price for Whites only?” How many cards do I need to carry to be able to do the same shopping I did before rewards programs? 20? 30? Papers, please.

Thanks, Doughfoot , for a thoughtful and well expressed piece shedding light on the thought processes of both sides. I always look forward to your comments.

Oh, never mind. I brought my own manure.

With open carry everyone is safer. Its the only way to stop the bad guys from doing their worst, since the cops never get there in time.

@the old professor – sorry, there’s no (legitimate) study that supports that position, quite the opposite in fact.

ps. I (libertarian) quite enjoy Donesbury but this has got to be one of the lamest ever. Shows he has absolutely no knowledge of the situation.

Hmm..if you live in an area where you need to carry a gun for protection, and are tough enough to use it, why go to Starbucks for a sissy coffee? Why not brew it on an open fire, and eat the beans like the cowboys did?

I don’t carry a firearm or a knife bigger than a pocketknife. Not because I am a pacifist, but because I would be too tempted to use use it when I get angry.

Mostly your refusal to take personal responsibility to be ready to protect yourself and others if the need should arise. But that’s OK, we’ll cover you.

Although I’m an NRA life member, I think most responsible members would agree that there is a difference between properly carrying a pistol for protection and brazenly displaying a semi-automatic paramilitary assault-style rifle with a 25 round magazine.

Better to ask just what kind of manure he wants on top. Horse? Bovine? Dog? Kangaroo?

You’ve obviously never lived in Houston. The HPD believe in shoot to kill in every situation and if they happen to barge into the wrong house, well too bad. The innocent die and the cop who did the shooting will never be indicted by a grand jury. And whatever you do, don’t call them. To the HPD, everyone is a criminal, so you are only inviting scrutiny when you call them because you must be guilty of something, nevermind that you called them for help and haven’t had so much as a speeding ticket.

I have lived places where no one carries guns, even the cops. People walk around without fear of being shot. We should repeal the Second Amendment and then we should ban the possession of handguns by all but the police. This could take a hundred years but seems to me a reasonable long-term goal. Or we could just go on killing each other.

If the police arrive on the scene and you have a weapon, they are much more likely to shoot first and look for your permit in the ambulance.

‘I have lived places where no one carries guns, even the cops. People walk around without fear of being shot’

Yes – some countries manage perfectly well with a police force which is not routinely armed, and much tougher gun laws.

Firearm-related deaths http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate UK 0.25, US 10.3 – over 40 times more.

Here in the UK, we don’t boycott Starbucks because of guns – no-one carries them – but because they don’t pay enough tax to us.

We have far more gun-related deaths in the United States than elsewhere. Why? Canada has guns also. True, you could kill someone with a hammer, but it is a lot easier to pull out a gun and shoot it.

Great job on this one, GT!

How many people turn back and leave their gun at home because of a “no guns” sign anyway? Just wondering…

How about openly carrying a sword? They are cool, and safer than guns.

Well, sir, there are more kinds of human than your kind. Your kind are the kind that openly carry deadly weapons that give them the ability to kill anyone around them. That kind is not welcome here.

There are many more accidental shootings and gun-related suicides when guns are around. There was a Harvard medical school study regarding this a few years ago. Australia provided a model to turn around their gun crazy murder situation a few years ago. It was a conservative government in power at the time when they made this happen. As far as I know, the world did not end when these reforms were made.

I know, too long winded. Save the comment for bedtime.

“I wonder…the guys with the big handguns in the holsters in public…what exactly are they compensating for??Must be trying to overcome a shortcoming SOMEWHERE…”

Does it follow, then, that those who oppose guns are enormously hung?

There are some who swear to do one thing knowing they intemd to do another.Liars exist in all walks of life.(Except on the Internet, of course, you’re not allowed to say it on the Internet unless it is true.)

I do respect your right to carry a weapon. If you read my post, you would know that. And I don’t have any interest in taking that right away from you. I have no idea what kind of neighborhood you live in, or what kind of people you find yourself among, or reason you have for thinking (or knowing) that you need to have that gun. Certainly, for some people, it is more dangerous for them to be without a gun than to have one. For many other people, however, the opposite is demonstrably true. I hope you in turn respect the right of the people to make such laws for their country as they think best. And to look for “best practices” wherever they may be found. I would like this country to be as safe a place to live as Austria, or Japan, or any other spot on the planet. It is not so at present. (Though it has gotten better in recent years.) How we get there is less interesting. If that means more guns in some places and fewer in others, more guns in some hands and fewer in others, that’s fine by me. I just want public policy to be based on facts and not suppositions or ideologies. I don’t own a gun at the moment, but I used to, and I may again one day. Guns are not of themselves good or bad, but they are instruments of violence, and dangerous if carelessly or maliciously handled.

“POLICE don’t exist to protectthe individual??? WTF?”

This has been upheld in court, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia.

The police simply can’t provide individual protection – to do so, you’d have to have a cop assigned to every house. They are primarily a reactive force, investigating and (hopefully) arresting perps. They are there to protect society as a whole, not to provide individual protection.

And guns are illegal in Mexico ( anyone tell the cartels that ?).

For those who think the law can prevent nasty types from getting guns, all our precautions may soon be moot, as it may soon be possible for any person to produce a gun in his own home via downloadable specs and a 3D printer.

Well, a lot of people do get shot at Starbucks, apparently.

That has nothing to do with what I said. I’m talking about the situation where a woman is looking for help and gets shot in the face standing at someone’s door. Or the guy who pulled his car into the wrong driveway and got shot dead because the homeowner thought he must be a home invader. Or the guys who got into a shoving match in a Subway until one guy shot the other because he thought his life was in danger. I’m talking about shooting someone being a first reaction instead of a last resort.

If it is ok with the other posters, I would like to use this site to make a personal note.I want to apologize to the very nice family that I met on the R train earlier today. I told them to take the R train to City Hall and walk over to the World Trade Center site. What I didn’t realize was that the R train had been rerouted from its regular route and went into Brooklyn and did not go to City Hall. Again, my sincerest apologies.

I bet that armed moron watches Fox News, too.

I get concealed carry, what I don’t get is open carry, which is the issue involving Starbucks stores. If someone walks into a Starbucks, gun in hand, how can you tell if they’re simply making a political statement, or they’re about to rob the place or shoot someone? What if one guy walks in carrying a gun, and another guy feels threatened – does guy #2 have a right to “stand his ground” and shoot the first guy? At the very least, sensible gun control would involve the gun staying put away or holstered – not this craziness people keep posting of their gun sitting next to their latte on a Starbucks table.

“Don’t businesses have the right to keep people out or not? Hard since they can’t be racist now.”.But you Libs go crazy when a baker in Colorado refuses to bake a cake for gays. Then rejoice when a judge orders him, a private business owner, to be forced to bake them a cake.So…which is it? You can’t have it both ways. If you support a business to not allow people to legally carry guns, then why wouldn’t you support the cake business owner to not have to bake cakes for gays?

A day late so you probably won’t see this, however, I will answer anyway. If everyone were 100% sane, this world wouldn’t need weapons in the first place. It’s the crazy ones we need to worry about whether they have fists, knives, guns or nuclear weapons.

Duhh. There’s a difference between picking one group to deny service to and asking everyone not to carry guns in your establishment. What a culture of victimhood.Having said that, I certainly wouldn’t trust any cake from that establishment and would go where my business was appreciated. And you can, too.

Crazies will only use machetes, or some other edged weapon if they can’t get guns. I, for one, would be very happy that someone was carrying a gun and used it against a machete wielding crazy.

“little Davy Crocketts defending their fort "-That would be the Alamo where they were wiped out by the Fedarales

“we’re out-spent in elections by the NRA.”-I am not now nor have I ever been associated with the NRA in any capacity, but it is an organization of Americans having a valid viewpoint lawfully speaking and supporting people with similar viewpoints and goals.-They are the ACLU fo the civil right enumerated in the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights