From My Warm, Coffee-Stained Hands

Feel like exercising one of your Constitutional Rights? Perhaps you'd like to freely assemble, or practice a religion of your choice or maybe even speak freely. Those would all be pretty simple to accommodate. But since this is the land of the free and the home of the brave, why not emphasize the brave part? If you want to get in touch with your inner founding father, why not strap on your holster and take old Bessie out for a Caffe Misto at your local Starbucks?
Just last month, Starbucks decided to back off their corporate ban against customers carrying weapons in their coffee bars. This was, in part, due to the intense lobbying of OpenCarry.org. These are the folks who believe that if you have the right to carry your weapon in public, you should use it. As they like to say, "an unexercised right is a right lost!" And so, in a number of states and municipalities, it is now perfectly acceptable to be "packing" while you're lining up for your morning latte.
Why not start your own newspaper? How about a little due process? Or a trial by jury? There must be some rights that you haven't used recently that would cause less of a stir than carrying a gun into your local chain coffee house. Of course, there are those who insist that the reason they carry their own weapons is because they feel this is the only way they can protect themselves in today's lawless society. The horribly bizarre irony of the shooting deaths of four policemen in Parkland, Washington last November would seem to be an argument against guns in coffee houses. Whether they are grouchy before getting their caffeine fix, or jittery just after, are patrons at a coffee bar the best candidates to test the second amendment? If so, then shouldn't we train and arm the baristas as well, just in case there's trouble? Isn't that what happened in Afghanistan back in the eighties?
For me, it is yet another example of just how wonderfully things have worked out here in the United States. People are carrying guns just to show off the freedom they are allowed. If I walked into a Starbucks without a shirt or shoes, I would be asked to leave. America is a funny place.