Starbucks admits the risk to its employees and customers by banning guns at its Starbucks' corporate headquarters. Why should only senior management be protected? Gunshot accidents have already been reported in Starbucks stores.
For better or worse, today much social change seems to gain traction only at the consumer-retail level:
According to Elliot Fineman, CEO of the National Gun Victims Action Council (NGAC), we are at the "secondhand smoke" moment in the gun debate--the moment when people realized that smokers endangered everyone not just themselves and they were no longer tolerated. When corporations and consumers stood up to Big Tobacco and banned smoking in stores, restaurants and public spaces, laws soon followed.Like second-hand smoke, the public is now beginning to see that gun proliferation is a constant threat to children and innocent bystanders that is getting worse through the aggression of gun rights' activists and lawmakers' inaction.
But even Starbucks, aka Evil Inc., cannot top the hypocrisy of our U.S. Congress. You can't very well carry a firearm into congressional galleries or hearing rooms. Even crazy pro-gun Republicans aren't so stupid as to risk getting shot by other crazies, even as they promote gun-owners' "right" to put Americans' lives at risk everywhere else.
By Martha Rosenberg
March 28, 2013 | AlterNet
2 comments:
Owning a gun doesn't inherently make you an offensive threat to anyone. If you only use it for the purposes of hunting, target shooting, and authentic self-defense; where is the endangering of non-aggressive others? And why is it that agents of the state with guns are not inherently threatening but ordinary citizens are?. Your profile spiel sounds partly humorous, so I am not sure whether to take all of it seriously. You do seem to suggest that only ATF agents can be trusted with firearms. You seem to be talking about carrying guns in public places though, so my point may not apply. That's a separate issue from the effects of ownership per se. Although I've been in public places with people who had guns without seeing anything bad happen.
Natalia, why does somebody need a gun that holds 30 or more bullets? Not for target shooting, hunting or self-defense. These are offensive weapons. Sure, most people could probably be trusted to own an RPG or a bazooka, but we outlaw it anyway. We regulate, restrict and tax all kinds of things, from cars to alcohol to lawn mowers -- all arguably more important to our everyday lives than guns, with positive benefits. Guns only kill. That's all they do. I just say let's ban the most deadly ones that have no positive, lawful purpose.
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