Guns and Coffee

 

Remember six months ago when the anti-gun Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and Washington CeaseFire were aghast that Seattle coffee giant Starbucks would not become their political surrogate and ban armed customers from their shops?

   This column wrote about it here and here. The campaign against Starbucks had kicked off down in California (where else?) and the gun prohibition lobby tried to spread it nationally, but quickly lost traction when Starbucks did the responsible thing and merely announced that it was in compliance with, and would do business under all state and local laws. Almost immediately, the Open Carry crowd declared it would spend more time and money with their local Starbucks franchises like they did in October at a Spanaway coffee shop following a confrontation between a legally-armed citizen and an allegedly over-zealous Pierce County sheriff's deputy. We discussed that case here.

   Now comes the news that Starbucks is reporting big earnings during the third quarter. The coffee giant reported yesterday that earnings had risen to $278.9 million, or 37 cents per share. That’s up significantly over last year’s third quarter earnings report of $150 million and 20 cents a share.

Examiner