The issue of gun rights has been making quite a few headlines lately, not so much in terms of examining the potential flaws in our gun policies following a tragedy (such as when a 20-year-old allegedly guns down six innocent strangers) but because companies like Starbucks and Chipotle, among others, are asking gun lovers not to bring their AK-47s to lunch.
Somewhere between eight and 10 members of Open Carry Texas recently openly carried into a San Antonio's Chili's. The manager asks the group a few questions, takes one of their pamphlets and says he needs to check the company's policy.
While they wait, an upset woman approaches the group, taking photographs of the members and reprimanding them for bringing guns into a restaurant with children. (When one of the guys sardonically asks her if she wants a pamphlet, she responds, "Actually, there's children here and you're a dumbass.")
"We protect the kids," one of the men respond. Another later says they're there "Making sure people don't come in and shoot up a Chili's." Once again, the logic being: The more guns, the safer! This mentality borders on citizen vigilantism, with a post on Open Carry Texas' Facebook almost boasting, "This man got away with robbing THREE ‘gun free' Starbucks restaurants...Businesses only have themselves to blame when they tell their customers that guns aren't welcome in their stores. This is not to condone the actions of criminals, but to point out the absurdity of gun control extremists' push to bully businesses to ban guns."
Because on the off chance your Chipotle gets robbed, at least you have your semi-automatic weapon handy to shoot the shooter. At what point of gun saturation do we become safer? Do we all need to have guns?
Anyway, the manager returns and tells the group, "We'd be happy to accommodate you. We'd be happy to sit you and feed you, you just have to leave your firearms outside." To which one member of the group snaps back, "This Chili's is no longer the safest Chili's to eat at."
Watch the entire ordeal below:
Right before they leave, a young woman asks the group what they're doing, to which the man filming says, "Representing our second amendment rights. We lose them if we don't use them."
Which directly contradicts what Open Carry Texas founder C.J. Grisham said after the Chipotle incident, when he claimed, "We don't go there just to carry guns into a restaurant. We always let the manager know we're coming. We try very hard to make people feel comfortable."
It's clear from this video alone that not only do the managers have no idea that groups of dudes carrying assault rifles would be coming in to grab a mix-and-match fajitas platter, but people are uncomfortable.
The video ends with the group saying "Let's go back to Sonic! Sonic likes us!"
Here is the video of the group being asked to leave Sonic:
After the video went viral, the V.P. of media relations at Sonic told Mother Jones:
"There is no [gun] policy at this point; we've traditionally relied on local and state laws. We see the situation has changed and there's [sic] new tactics being employed and businesses are being pulled into this debate. That's really what prompts the need to consider it."
Meanwhile, a number of gun rights groups, including Open Carry Texas, have banded together to release a statement on their Wordpress saying, "It has become clear that there is one area in which we have gotten the most resistance and suffered the largest setbacks."
"We have decided the prudent path, to further our goals, is to immediately cease taking long guns into corporate businesses unless invited," the statement continues.