I had one yesterday; I was both the teacher and the taught. Some of you may disagree with me; that's okay.

As my daughter Rachel was walking home from school yesterday, the sirens went off -- Tornado Warning. Not Watch -- a lower level of alert -- or Sighting -- yucko! -- but Warning.

I was on the cell with her, and asked her what the nearest store was. It was Sisters Sludge, my formerly favorite coffee shop, corner of 46th and Bloomington. I've been quietly boycotting it since April of 2003, when, in reaction to the passage of the MCPPA, they put up fully-compliant signs on both of their doors. They're nice folks, and I'd been going there for years, and I wasn't (and am not) mad at them. I'd had a short discussion about it with them before the law went into effect, and dropped off a NO GUNS NO MONEY card after.

Not a big deal. They've got a right to post; I've got a right to take my business elsewhere.

Well, when my daughter told me that she was there, I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about that and I spent no time hesitating at all. I told her to get inside there and wait for me; I'd pick her up and drive her home. She asked the folks in there if she could wait for her Daddy to pick her up, what with the sirens going off, and, of course, they said, "of course," and I picked her up a little later and drove her home, just about the same time that the warning expired.

Hence the teaching/learning moment. I don't think I've got any moral right to ask a store owner to shelter my kid from a storm and then go ahead and boycott them just because they're exercising their rights under the law in a way that I wish they wouldn't.

So, I'm going to be stopping off again at Sisters Sludge, tonight, to pick up a cup of something on my way home. If I was going someplace posted because of some practical necessity, I'd just ignore the signs, but I don't think it's right to in this case -- it's not anything resembling a huge moral crisis, but there are a couple of ethical issues involved. So my gun stays secured in the car, because, I think, that's the right thing to do, all things considered.

Now, if I was writing this as a novel, I could have the protagonist go through all that, engage in a pleasant discussion with the owners, and they'd take the signs down, and, say, a few weeks later some permit holder (not the protagonist; that'd be too pat -- fiction has to appear credible) would deter a robbery with a display of a firearm, leaving behind a tidy moral lesson.

But, let's face it, life's not like that. I'm just going to end up buying a cup of coffee.

Seems that life is full of quandaries like this, that is why it is humorous when some post absolutes regarding situations, you do not know how you will react or perform until put to the test.

I respect and understand your decision and action, except for maybe the "So my gun stays secured in the car, because, I think, that's the right thing to do."

Good learning opportunity overall...............family does indeed come first!

.

Sure. I'm not entirely comfortable with my solution, but I don't think there's much of an ethical difference between simply continuing a private boycott of an establishment and ignoring the signs. Under most circumstances, I'd prefer the former and don't have any problem with the latter, if avoiding the place isn't convenient.

But, again, I asked these folks to shelter my kid; I don't feel right about doing either of those.

If folks think I'm wrong about that, it's okay to think so, and okay to say so.

As you've described it, it seems you're placing your principles in this order:

1) I'll respect all of their positions, because they sheltered my child and I might want them to do it again if necessary.
2) I want to be able to defend my self with a gun in all possible scenarios where it doesn't land me in jail (which includes carrying past the signs)
3) I will boycott those who don't tolerate my principles on right to carry if I can go without their services

It seems that getting a cup of coffee as a tit-for-tat exchange for sheltering your child that once is a reasonable demonstration of gratitude.
So is the desire to possibly call on them again to do the same in #1 what's trumping #2...ethically, that is? i.e. are you placing the potential value of their future shelter of your child, over the potential value of your carrying on their premises in a non-illegal way?

Golly, if she had been in front of DFL HQ when the sirens went off, would you have felt compelled to vote Democrat from now on?

To fail to shelter a child from a dangerous storm would be inhuman.

I'm not sure that their failure to act inhumanly is sufficient cause for you to overlook and even reward their desire to deny their patrons the human right of effective self defense.

I agree with Andrew, but a thank you is always in order when someone helps you out. That said, you wouldn't disarm to thank someone for helping your daughter with crossing a busy road, why disarm to thank the coffee shop.
On another note as you buy your coffee, you could gaze listfully around and muse how you miss stopping by for your regular JavaJive and answer the question that should provoke.

My .02

In my opinion, the key to the whole thing is not whether I agree or disagree with what you are saying or doing. The fact that you are even thinking about it says volumes about the kind of person you are and your character. The older I get the more I realize that it is not the destination, but the journey along the way that counts. Many just skim through life without giving a second thought to what they are doing or the implications of their actions. I am included in the "many" more times than I am willing to admit. God bless you Joel. I am glad that your daughter stayed safe.

Good question, Ree. I think it's both a bit simpler, and more complicated. One of the keys to being ethical, I think, is not having to worry about, at least in terms of legitimate embarrassment, "what happens if I'm found out?"

(Let's not get into the subtle and nonsubtle differences between "private" and "embarrassing.")

It's one of the many reasons I didn't consider doing phony-baloney shooting "qualifications" with a laser training toy or a pellet gun in a hotel room, and wouldn't rush sign to off on a brand new shooter -- somebody who had never held a gun before -- who managed to, her first and only time with a firearm in her hand, hit the paper a grand total of four times: it would look bad because, well, it would be bad*.

I mean, well, sheesh.

If I were to walk past the signs in the Mall of America (as I did, just this last Sunday; my sister was in town and wanted to go to the Mall) and it became a matter of discussion (as it just has, because I brought it up), I'm not embarrassed. The purpose of the signage law, after all, wasn't to allow landlords, like the Mall management, to restrict carry by their tenants or their tenants' customers. Not a problem.

When large corporations put up signs for clearly idiotic reasons, I don't have any respect for them. They're corporations, after all -- soulless, unconscious, conscience-free entities; I don't respect them any more than I respect a rickety chair or a toilet that leaks.

When it comes to small owner-operated businesses, though, those are, I think, expressions of the real people who own and operate them, and I tend to respect people. Greg Ketter, who owns and runs DreamHaven, is personally anti-gun -- as is his right -- but deliberately chose not to put up signs, as a personal and business decision, despite some pressure from some of the local loons. I respect that, and Greg.

And the same, sort of, with the nice triplets who own/run Sisters Sludge. They're nice people, and I would feel wrong about doing something in their store that, if they knew about it, would be embarrassing . They've made their position clear; I've made mine clear. And they know who I am, and who my kids are, and of course they didn't hesitate for a moment to provide shelter to my kid in a storm . . .

. . . and I wouldn't feel right about putting anything over on them.

As to the going-to-jail part, that's not where I draw my line.

As a matter of practice, I'm sure I could carry in many places where it's not legal to without running the slightest risk of going to jail for it. To pick one example, and to digress a bit, back during the MnStf Gun Wars (which I haven't posted on in the Forum; I really should write up an essay on it some time, as it was an . . . interesting time) I took the public and private position that if somebody hosting a party had made it explicitly clear to me that they didn't want me to bring a gun into their home, they might or might not end up with guns in their home -- one of the nutsier antigun folks was robbed at gunpoint in his own home, after all -- but they wouldn't have me there on a social occasion with a gun on my person.

Now, it would have been trivially easy to go along -- to say "fine; your house, your rules" -- and just carry discreetly enough never to be caught. I mean, I've been carrying for years, after all, and I've got all sorts of devices, and concealment isn't exactly rocket science*** -- and if I can get Greg or DDB, who know just about all the tricks I do, to shrug and say "Okay, I give up; I don't know where" I wouldn't have had any trouble with the likes of Bruce Schneier or Larry Sanderson.

And if caught? So what? (In terms of going to jail.) What would poor Larry** say? "Officer, he fibbed to me! Take him to Fibber's Prison!"

So, the long answer is that it's more about what I think is right than about consequences.



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* Just to be clear, while I wasn't around for any of those, these are not hypotheticals, okay? While I have a lot of respect for many folks in the instructor community -- and I don't know of any instructor who posts on the Forum doing anything of the sort, and would strongly doubt it -- I'm sure that you'll grant that there's no large group that won't have some shady operators in it, and the instructor community is a large group.

** Over beers some time, ask me or another of the folks who were around for some Larry stories. They're quite a laugh, in retrospect.

*** Hmmm... would somebody remind me before I do the new course for permit holders and non-permit holders -- working title: "Whether or not you have a hammer, the world is not made of nails" -- to include the decoy covering garment trick?

In order: not for a second, and sure.

But, to turn it around, I can -- and do -- think of some politicians who I've been more supportive than I otherwise would (both in contributions and other support) because of their support of the MCPPA. I wrote an elevator pitch for Lynda Boudreau on the abortion waiting period bill -- with which, on balance, I disagree -- because it was, well, Lynda. I felt that I owed her (more than) that. (The bill would have passed even if she hadn't used the pitch, mind you, but I'm not responsible for what other folks do, but for what I do and don't do.)

ETA: and they're not denying their patrons the right of self-defense; their patrons are utterly free to go elsewhere, or just carry discreetly and ignore the signs. I'm not trying to control what they do, or what their other patrons do; I'm just trying to work out what's right, on balance, for me to do. And in terms of changing their minds, I've had that discussion with them, and the signs stayed up; I'll save my breath to cool my soup.

And if folks want to take cheap shots at it, that's fine.

Wow. You've certainly given all of us a lot to think about, Joel. Where *do* we draw the line? I, for one, don't carry at my girlfriend's mother's house- she has expressed her desire not to have guns in her home, and I respect her wishes. At Costco/MOA/etc? Signs ignored. But where in between those two extremes lies the line?

BTW, I, for one, would love to hear of the MnStf Gun Wars- I used to be a Minicon goer, and know and/or know of a fair number of the principals, I would guess...

Sure. The short form is that, in the wake of the MCPPA passing, there was a huge sturm und drang (the details are the best part; remind me).

While there had been carry reform in many states with SF groups in them, Minnesota was the first one where a fellow fairly prominent in carry reform was also fairly prominent in the local SF community* and has a certain tendency toward what can generously be called being strong of will and purpose, and where some formerly pretty sane-sounding regulars helping to run the organization and the convention (most prominently Larry Sanderson and Laura Jane Fish) went kinda batshit.

Much hilarity ensued.


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* That would be, err, me. There were other MnStfers involved, in various degrees, in the reform movement -- Felicia, Greg, and DDB are probably the best known here, although Bruce was both involved in reform and, at that point, I believe largely peripherally involved in MnStf.

I guess if I was in those shoes, I'd not feel compelled to thank them (outside of a "thank you") for doing what any reasonable person/establishment should do.

Joel,

I think you suck it up, go into the coffee shop, thank them for sheltering your daughter. Then politely ask them if you can get your

filled.

I've got no problem with that, but I'm not sure it's exactly a secret to them that I'm kinda pro-gun, given discussions and a copy of The Book left there (the first printing, the one with my name and picture on the cover), after the law passed but before it went into effect.

Are they open Saturday mornings for breakfast.......

Just kidding, do not hit the clacker*, please.......



.* "Front toward enemy".......