Starbucks is standing its grounds against gun owners.
In May, the coffee chain banned smoking not only in their shops, but within 25 feet outside them. It's not hard to imagine that second-hand bullets might be considered as dangerous as second-hand smoke.
This week, Starbucks asked licensed gun owners not to bring their weapons into the shops.
While not an outright ban, it's a reversal for a business that had been lauded by pro-gun groups as a defender of gun rights. Starbucks had refused for years to fall in line with many other companies that have signs banning guns in places of business.
That was one mass shooting ago, and the chain has had some other incidents that put it in the middle of the gun debate.
In May, a Starbucks customer dropped her purse in a St. Petersburg, Fla., shop, causing the handgun inside the bag to fire a shot that wounded her friend in the leg. Two months later, a fight between two men over a Craigslist phone sale outside a Starbucks in Houston ended with one of the men being shot.
Florida law bans the state's 1-million-plus concealed weapons permit holders from bringing their guns inside courthouses, schools, bars, airports, professional sporting events and meetings of the Florida Legislature. Businesses not specified by the law can put up signs saying weapons are banned.
"We chuckle at these signs," said Von Bender, a firearms instructor. "If it's a concealed weapon, nobody's going to know about it anyway. The worse thing that can happen is that they ask you to leave."
Or you drop the gun and accidentally shoot your friend in the leg. I guess there's that, too.
Cerabino writes for The Palm Beach Post. Email frank_cerabino@pbpost.com.
