Valentine’s Day 2012, the National Gun Victims Action Council (NGAC) is launching Brew Not Bullets: Say No To Starbucks…Until Starbucks Says No To Guns, a national boycott of Starbucks and its related products.

NGAC announced today’s calls for the Starbucks boycott on Jan. 23 only after exhaustive efforts to avoid a boycott were rejected All efforts to avoid this boycott  “The boycott will end only when Starbucks rejects the NRA’s Pro-Gun agenda by 1) banning all guns from their stores and 2) committing to be an Aggressive Corporate Advocate for sane gun laws,” says Elliot Fineman, CEO of the National Gun Victim’s Action Council (NGAC).

Starbucks rationale is contained in their official Starbucks response —”In the end, we determined that following local laws is the best approach for us.  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.”

“As local laws also allow them to ban guns, they expose their real position which has nothing to do with local laws; the fact is that Starbucks supports the NRA’s lethal Pro-Gun Agenda,” says Fineman.

What Does Supporting The NRA’S Lethal Pro-Gun Agenda mean?  It means supporting the man-made epidemic of gun violence we have in the US.  If we had England’s gun laws, which are based on public safety, adjusting for population, we would expect 5 times their 75 gun homicides per year, or 375.

But because U.S. gun laws are based on maximizing sales for the gun industry (not public safety), we have 12,000 gun homicides per year, 17,000 gun suicides and 1,000 accidental gun deaths.  And this is what Starbucks chooses to support. Guns go off accidentally, as one did in Starbucks in January.  The bullet missed a customer’s head by 12 inches with not a word from Starbucks about this; this is acceptable Pro-Gun Agenda risk.

Why doesn’t Starbucks admit they support the NRA’S lethal pro-gun agenda? “While Starbucks has the legal right to allow guns (or not) in their stores (openly carried in 43 states, concealed and carried in 49 states), why do they try to ‘tap dance” asks Fineman,  “Why not be direct and say “As per local laws, we can ban guns or allow them and we have chosen to allow them?”

Because by doing so they betray their claim to be a socially responsible company.  No socially responsible company would ever allow guns like these —one that shoots 13 bullets per second—to be brought into their stores: Types of Guns

“They surely know the threat to safety people carrying guns pose,” says Reverend Jackie Lynn, Executive Director of the Episcopal Peace Fellowship.  “Why else would Starbucks ban guns from its corporate headquarters, Starbucks shareholder meetings and have a company policy forbidding employees (partners) from bringing guns to work?”

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/souwar/

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