Brady Bunch Cost California Pizza Kitchen 100 Customers
Says Uncle let’s us know that compliance with the Brady Bunch can cost you a lot of customers. The Brady Campaign didn’t have any luck with Starbucks but they certainly had some luck with California Pizza Kitchen in getting the restaurant to ban openly displays firearms on the premises. Unfortunately for them it cost them 100 customers who moved their open carry meeting to somewhere that likes their money. This is what you can look forward to if you decide to deny people their constitutional rights.
Let’s Make a Registry for Everything
After scaling the Walls of the City I saw the city introduced legislation to register ice cream truck workers. Shortly afterward I climbed the way to escape.
Seriously what the fuck?
Good on You Starbucks
Previously I mentioned the Brady Bunch were trying to cost Starbucks money by shoving a petition under their nose to ban open carry in their establishments. I’ve since learned from Alphecca that Starbucks has further shown the Brady Bunch’s irrelevance by telling them to sodomize themselves with retractable batons (I may be paraphrasing slightly here):
“Starbucks does not have a corporate policy regarding customers and weapons; we defer to federal, state and local laws and regulations regarding this issue,” Starbucks’ customer relations department said in response to the Brady Campaign’s request.
You know I’m actually starting to like Starbucks. Good on you guys.
What Wussies
Seriously everybody is going on about the horrible snow storm that hit the east coast, even other countries are commenting. I don’t know about the rest of the country but here in the northern part of the midwest we call these massive snow storms “winter.” And to prepare for this “winter” we do a few common sense things like ensuring we have a supply of food, have needed snow gear in our vehicles, and wear heavy coats. You guys in the new global warming sector should look into those items.
Don’t Ask Don’t Tell
Well it’s a another week which means there is another hot topic for bloggers. This week is the military’s “don’t ask don’t tell” policy. Since it’s a slow news day I figured this is a good way to get the daily post count above two.
Anybody who has read this blog or listened to Truth About Guns (New episode is in the works by the way) knows I’m a libertarian. That’s libertarian with a lower case “l” by the way. This puts me square under the belief that peoples’ rights have the utmost importance. On of those rights is to ability to do as you please so long as you don’t violate another person’s rights.
I see no reason gays can’t join the military and server along sight straights. Yes it may make some of the straight service men and woman awkward but frankly that’s just too bad. Is somebody’s life making you feel uncomfortable? If so feel free to cry me a river and toss your complaint into it.
I have gay friends. They are every bit as capable as anybody else. None of them have an inability to control their sex drive. All this bull shit about gay people serving ruining our military is hogwash. There are already gay people serving, they just can’t openly state they’re gay.
Of course people are mentioning the fact they won’t want to shower with other people of the same sex who are gay. My response, don’t complement yourself so highly. Gay people don’t go around ogling people of the same sex any more than straight people ogle people of the opposite sex. That means a majority of gay people are going to be checking out your ugly ass any longer than you check out an ugly person of the opposite sex. I’m sorry to be the one to inform you that you’re just not that attractive to everybody of the same sex who is gay. If they do check you out who cares? Really what does it matter? Does it make you uncomfortable? Maybe you should remember that the next time your ogling a member of the opposite sex.
I know there are a ton of people who disagree with me and that’s OK to, I respect your right to have a differing opinion. Hell I’m even willing to debate the subject so long as your argument doesn’t involve simply being homophobic. But in the end this thing is an entire non-issue. We already have gays serving in the military and the only thing abolishing “don’t ask, don’t tell” is going to do is let this people be open about it. All “don’t ask, don’t tell” accomplishes is forcing a subset of the military population to lie.
More Open Carry Drama
Says Uncle has a post about more open carry drama occurring, this time in Michigan. The group Michigan Open Carry decided to have a meeting at a Pondarosa which the owner was fine with. Well that is until some of the members started showing up with rifle:
Officials from Michigan Open Carry say the owner of Ponderosa greed to let them hold a meeting at the restaurant. But he says he didn’t expect the meeting to be held on a busy Saturday — and certainly didn’t expect the men to bring more than handguns.
“At first, we looked the other way on the handguns,” said owner Dennis Holleran. “And then some gentleman shows up with an assault rifle, and that was just too far over the top.”
The owner called the police who came and ousted the Michigan Open Carry members. Of course there are hard feelings going around as would be expected. A lot of people are saying the open carry advocates were well within their right to carry and therefore what happened was unconscionable. But they are also forgetting another right, the right of a property owner to determine what happens on his or her property.
I personally can’t say the owner of the Pondarosa was out of line. Something was happening on his property that he was uncomfortable with so he took measures to make it stop. I don’t believe he should have called the cops before asking the people to leave but alas it’s his place and he can do as he pleases.
If somebody doesn’t want me to carry a gun on their property then I won’t go there. The owner sets the rules and I can chose to either abide by them or not go there. Likewise a property owner has the right to say he will allow me to carry a handgun but not a rifle. We as gun owners need to realize that we have a right to keep and bear arms and property owners have a right to determine what they will and will not allow on their property.
Of course these rules are different for governments in my book since that land is owned by the tax payers. Because of this I don’t think government has the right to determine what rights they will respect and what rights they won’t respect. But that’s an entirely different topic.
On another point relating to the topic at hand I want to say the police handled this situation very well:
But LPD say no one was arrested and notes they’re now working cooperatively with Open Carry to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
“I think the taxpayers of Lansing want us to respond to gun calls. But at the same time, we need to be aware of individual rights.”
So kudos to them for not making a big fuss out of this and understanding they need to be aware of peoples’ rights.
This is Retarded
No seriously it is. There is a web site dedicated to stopping people from using the word retarded. Retarded is a legitimate medical term for Christ’s sake. This is no different than deterring the use of the word idiot, moron, or stupid. All of those words are legitimate medical terms referring to an improperly developed mind and are used in derogatory manners.
Trying to stop the use of terms in place of flowery hippie phrases is one of by biggest pet peeves. It’s akin to saying a child isn’t poor, they’re at risk at hope. I’m sorry (OK I’m not) to be blatant about this but no matter what word you create to replace retarded it’s eventually going to be used in a derogatory manner because people like to insult each other. The best thing you can do is ignore it and eventually people will move on to another word.
These campaigns are stupid. I personally pledge to keep using the word retarded as well as every other word I use to insult things.
Brady Bunch Trying to Bankrupt Starbucks
In these hard economic times you have to do everything you can to keep your business going. Every dollar you can get counts. Well unless you ask the Brady Campaign who according to the every knowledgeable Snowflakes in Hell has a petition going to convince Starbucks to ban guns on their premises. From the Brady site (Which I won’t link to directly):
Dear Friend,
I ain’t your damned friend…
Over the past few months, more and more gun owners have been gathering at restaurants and coffee shops like Starbucks with guns strapped to their hips, intimidating fellow patrons.
Businesses can legally prohibit guns from being carried in their establishments – and so far, Peet’s Coffee & Tea and California Pizza Kitchen have heeded customer concerns and barred the open carrying of guns.
But Starbucks is refusing to prohibit the open carrying of firearms in its stores, despite protests from loyal customers.
Starbucks is being smart, they like money and therefore they want to keep us gun owners happy. I do have to laugh at the fact the Brady Bunch can only list two other businesses that ban carry in their businesses, and one of them I’ve never heard of.
I think I might send off a nice letter to Starbucks informing them of the fact I appreciate their respect for my rights. I may not like their coffee or their prices but I like the fact that they are OK with me being able to defend myself in their store. Good on them and I hope they keep refusing.
Utah Passes Firearms Freedom Act
Well it appears as though Utah has passed their own Firearms Freedom Act in a vote of 19 to 10. That’s good news to hear.
I know a lot of people believe these laws are only symbolic and can not actually be enforced but I think it’s also an act of defiance against the federal government. Regardless of the enforceability of these acts they do serve as a big middle finger from the states that enact them to the federal government. I think more of this style of defiance is needed honestly, the states really need to take back their rights. I’m hoping Minnesota passes this act when it comes up for vote as well.
The IRS Don’t Mess Around
So I noticed this post on The Firearm Blog this morning. The post opens with the following:
By now you have probably heard about the news that the IRS is buying Remington 870 shotguns. Why? Who knows.
So I thought I’d bring up something interesting that most people don’t realize. The IRS, being federal employees, actually have armed agents. The company I work for has been raided by the IRS (Not for anything the company itself did, but because of selected people in the company). This happened before I was hired but I’ve obtained the details from my co-workers who were here at the time since they do like to bring it up. One of the facts that is always emphasizes was that the IRS agents were armed when they entered the building and started rounding up all the employees. Once the employees were rounded up they were put under armed guard until the agents were able to secure all the computers in the building.
The IRS don’t screw around, if you are breaking enough tax codes to catch their ire they will do the logical thing and arm their agents when they come a knocking. The shotguns the tax men have recently purchased are most likely to be used in such raids.
