I have been negligent and I've been reminded of this in email from Mike:
Are you aware of any efforts to counter the Brady Starbucks petition? They claim to have 25k signatures. Money talks and bullshit walks, though. I think it would be a lot more effective than an online petition to designate a "Thank Starbucks Day", where people would be encouraged to go into their local Starbucks, buy a coffee, and hand the manager a card thanking the company for their enlightened policies. Or send the CEO a photo of oneself holding a latte. Or ??? This might not be a bad idea to put into practice regularly with other companies. Why complain about bad policies? Let's reward companies with good ones (and make a lot of noise doing it). What do you think?
"I'd like to thank Starbucks for standing up for the safety of its customers and allowing lawfully carried firearms in your retail establishments. Thank you for your wise decision and for helping us keep our families safe. I will be recommending your products to all my coffee drinking friends."
Yes. This must be done.
Sebastian has more on the topic here and here. Send your email by following this link.
It is really, really important for the Brady Campaign to win something. They aren't winning in the legislatures. They aren't winning elections. They aren't winning in the courts. They aren't winning in the polls. They aren't winning in donations. They aren't winning in members. They have sunk to the level of doing battle with a few guys in their pajamas which they can't win either.
Such a major losing streak can become a fatal downward spiral. It demoralizes them and their supporters. As Chris Cox, NRA-ILA Executive Director, said in regards to politicians, "They don't fear me. They fear you." If the Brady Campaign can only bring a small fraction of the people to the party that gun activists can they will be less influential. The less influence they have the less notice people will give them. The less notice the less influence.
It's sort of like something barely floating on the surface of the ocean. As long as they are less dense than the water they float and are visible. The visibility changes day to day with the density. As long as they are visible they have influence and have hope of becoming more visible and influential the next day. But this is only true while their density is less than water. There is a threshold which cannot be crossed. Very shortly after their density increases just a very small amount above water they start their journey to the very bottom of the ocean. Their visibility while on the surface is a linear function of their density. But as soon as the density of water threshold is crossed it's like a switch was turned off.
We know how dense they are. It won't take much to get them started on their journey to oblivion. Send Starbucks your email and your business. Tell them when you buy your coffee (or pastries, tea, and hot chocolate for people like me) that you are a gun owner and you appreciate them not discriminating against people exercising their specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.