I don't know that I can really blame Sonic for prohibiting open carry in their restaurants. From what I read in the news people were showing up with rifles strapped to their backs.
How would you react if you were sitting in a restaurant and someone walked in with a rifle?
You know; I can understand both sides of this coin. Problem is, most equate CCW with OC individual, with the reality which is well meaning, but not really thinking stuff thru folks who feel that they should 'assert' themselves via getting 5-20 folks together carrying rifles (oft unloaded, for whatever STOOPID reason they do that) and walking into a restaurant, Home Depot, etc. all at once, just to show you that they can.
And that's where the rub is. #1. It's an eating establishment. Do you REALLY sit at the table daily in your own home with a shotgun, a pistol and a knife at the table? (Spare me the uber stud picture of the short 45 on the table and a schminky $130 pocket knife being used to cut your steak, whilst the steak knife sits upon the table unused, as though it were so lonely and being humiliated by your superior folding finger-cutter.)
Only for the pic, to prove you are a poser.
#2. At said eating establishment, with my young kids; I don't concern myself with A fella with a holstered rig. He's not my concern. But when 15 folks show up, and they are there to 'make a bold statement'..... these are the folks and these are the times when a gun seems most likely to accidentally just 'go off.' And whom exactly are you kidding? (Yourself.)
#3. Again, at said eating establishment. I happen to have been really good friends with a kid named Greg. When we were young, his uncle was a truck driver, and was a really neat guy. Drove a big rig, and we knew just what it looked like! Well, there was a shooting at a McDonald's in SanYsidro, and on the news, we saw Greg's uncle's truck.
He did not leave that restaurant alive. He died trying to stop the gunman. Yes, he was unarmed. He was a peace loving guy, and a big man, and I can't tell you why or why not he would or would not have been carrying. It matters not, 30 years later.
My point is: You whom insist on having a group walk into ANY establishment while arrogantly carrying to assert yourselves are tempting fate. And someday, fate is going to smile down upon you, with disastrous results. It's not that I will relish when a bunch of armed, but unloaded (ie UNARMED) people are considered a threat by someone else and opened fire upon, by a very REAL armed person. And a lot of blood will needlessly get spilled, and a bunch of empty rifles will be laying on the ground soaked in blood, or God forbid, they will be dropped and scratched or bent as their owners flee whatever malfeasance is thrust upon them, rendering them to French battle rifle status.
Pushing my temperament as a Home Depot manager, or an owner or manager of a restaurant IS NOT WISE. So YOU are SOOoooo happy to be playing 'gun boy' in MY BUSINESS. And then MY CUSTOMERS leave because of YOU. Intimidating my customers is not wise, as I will simply restrict YOU for interrupting MY commerce and serving MY community.
Never forget..... YOU would NOT feel too comfortable were I to walk directly to YOUR DOOR carrying my rifle- unloaded or not. YOU would NOT feel comfortable with me walking toward your kids on the sidewalk in front of their school. ( I know;
I KNOW..... YOU are the benevolent protector, and you would meet MY rifle with YOUR rifle. And so THATS how you would like to greet each other in front of the school, or in front of Denny's on a Sunday morning??!!
No. You'd be nervous as hell. You would NOT be comfortable, at all. Whether you knew me well, or not. So WHY push gun rights supporters' buttons? Is it you'd like to get one shook up so they will test your resolve with that unloaded rifle? Is it so that gun rights supporters will look at your actions and say "I don't like gun rules, but I like you morons even LESS..."
Do us all a BIG FAVOR. Take pictures of your gun on your dinner table with a steak. Show me what a bad-azz you are, insinuating that the pistol took down that mad steer in a fight at the corral, and you are now conquering it with your pocket knife, whilst the steak knife plays the role of food bitch and sits silently at the table. But leave your rifles in the car, and quietly, discreetly slip a pistol for protection into your waistband holster, and go about your day confident that though the rest of these folks might wind up pushing daisies if a lunatic shows up unannounced, you can at least defend yourself.
Because, well....... you embarrass me. Because you embarrass yourselves.
