American Defense Enterprises

Starbuck’s says its (open carry) legal and they are not going to take a corporate anti-gun position.  For the record, I was a Coffee Bean guy (I like one of their ice blendeds a little better).  I am now a Starbuck’s guy — besides, they have cute bears and yummy egg salad sammiches.

Here is Starbuck’s statement, issued today:

Mar 03, 2010
Starbucks Position on Open Carry Gun Laws

SEATTLE, March 03, 2010 – We recognize that there is significant and genuine passion surrounding the issue of open carry weapons laws. Advocacy groups from both sides of this issue have chosen to use Starbucks as a way to draw attention to their positions.

While we deeply respect the views of all our customers, Starbucks long-standing approach to this issue remains unchanged. We comply with local laws and statutes in all the communities we serve. In this case, 43 of the 50 U.S. states have open carry weapon laws. Where these laws don’t exist, we comply with laws that prohibit the open carrying of weapons. The political, policy and legal debates around these issues belong in the legislatures and courts, not in our stores.

At the same time, we have a security protocol for any threatening situation that might occur in our stores. Partners are trained to call law enforcement as situations arise. We will continuously review our procedures to ensure the highest safety guidelines are in place and we will continue to work closely with law enforcement.

We have examined this issue through the lens of partner (employee) and customer safety. Were we to adopt a policy different from local laws allowing open carry, we would be forced to require our partners to ask law abiding customers to leave our stores, putting our partners in an unfair and potentially unsafe position.

As the public debate continues, we are asking all interested parties to refrain from putting Starbucks or our partners into the middle of this divisive issue. As a company, we are extremely sensitive to the issue of gun violence in our society. Our Starbucks family knows all too well the dangers that exist when guns are used irresponsibly and illegally. Without minimizing this unfortunate reality, we believe that supporting local laws is the right way for us to ensure a safe environment for both partners and customers.

SCOTus Blog has the write up here.  20 months, to the day, after the Supreme Court decided in Heller v DC that the Second Amendment is an individual right rather than a collective right, arguments will be heard in McDonald v Chicago.

At issue:  does the Fourteenth Amendment provision of “incorporation” apply to states like it does for the  1st, 4th and other amendments.

Here is a copypasta from my post back in October:

Here is the short summary:  The Heller v DC ruling answered the question “is the right to bear arms” an individual or a collective freedom — it is an individual freedom.  So, as far as the Federal Government is concerned, it cannot pass laws that restrict an individual’s right.  But here is the catch:  The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written and applied to the Federal Government, not the states.   So, in the past, a state could have passed a law that restricted freedom of the press, but, the Federal government could not. — Washington DC is governed by the Federal Government so Heller v DC is the law of DC.

I said that “in the past” a state could pass such laws.  That changed with the 14th Amendment.  As part of the interpretation of  “XIV” is the idea of “incorporation” of certain laws against the states.  Over time, a very clear mandate has come down, for example, that the 1st and 4th Amendment very much apply to state laws, so, these days a state cannot pass a law that violates either of these amendments.

Chicago has a law that says you cannot own a handgun.  The question in McDonald v Chicago is whether the 14th Amendment provides for the incorporation of the 2nd Amendment against the states much like it does the 1st and the 4th.  The answer seems fairly obvious — why would only some amendments be affected and not others? But, it turns out that legally it is a phenomenally complicated matter involving different specific rights provided for by the 14th Amendment and how those rights get applied to state laws — is it a due process issue?  is it a  “privileges and immunities” issue?  What are the history of those issues, etc. etc. etc.   Ug!

Either way… It will probably be an interesting hour..

(from fox news)

Story from EFF here.  Congratulations, under your changemore of the same president, we have been guaranteed the continuation of spying on Americans and the ability of the government to completely abrogate your civil rights just by suggesting you may be a terrorist.

**No, I do not believe that either Bush nor Obama is as bad as Hitler.  Not even close.  I am just pointing out that we were promised change and one thing that seemed to offend Americans was the erosion of civil liberties that occurred under Bush’s watch — enough that posters such as this were made… I am just pointing out, civil liberties haven’t gotten better yet.

The chance to live free and to make our own success are things we are losing (quite possibly have lost).  It seems a strong president with a will to change these things is what we need to reverse these paths — If we have that, it hasn’t been demonstrated yet .  Sadly, the legislature is too obsequious to special interests to ever make a change for the common good just because it is for the common good…

We talked about this guy earlier…  Rod Tuason threatened to kill people that expressed their 2nd Amendment rights by open carrying in a comment he made on Facebook.

Remarkably(ha!), there has been a very strong backlash in the Facebook community…. Fox has a nice story on that here.

Below is a screen capture of his comments from Kevin Thomason’s blog.

Rod Tuason, a Palo Alto cop, decided to post on facebook  “threatening to kill anyone he found openly carrying a handgun, even if that person was carrying it legally.” (Story at CNET)

“…and if it weren’t for the Blackberry my pappy that I always kept in my breast pocket, that bullet would have killed me!”

Thanks to TheFirearmBlog for the link to this story… basically some dumb ass managed to get his clothing caught up in his .32 pistol and discharged it through his coat and at his girlfriend.

When the round struck his GF, the Blackberry stopped the bullet with only minor bruising as a result.  I wish they mentioned which firearm the gentleman had…

I found this video over at WDTN.

Somebody found that if you take the airport scanner image and do some photoshop trickery, it looks pretty compelling as a nude photo…

Remember, this isnt porn…. This is just what the airport people see every time you consent to go in their penis sizing machine…

May they be cursed with 1,000’s of these:

They delete the images after they are looked at, right?  Not that a cell phone camera wouldnt do the same thing…

Saw this… seemed of general interest.

If you are sitting by your computer 9am this Friday and have free time, you probably should check out the Cato Institute’s premiere of “10 Rules for Dealing with the Police” produced by FlexYourRights.org.  FlexYour Rights is a great group doing good to help Americans understand their 4th amendment rights.  Remember, this is NOT about whether you have something to hide or not…  This is about preserving the freedoms our cultural ancestors died to secure for us.