Hoo boy! As some of you may have read already, and the rest are about to, Starbucks -- yes, the coffee house -- has unwittingly stepped on a political land mine.

It seems to have started in Virginia, where a group of gun owners had been using various food and beverage venues in their particular area as meeting places, something perfectly rational to do. Now comes an anti-gun organization, who were able to convince several of these places to prohibit guns on their property, as is their right. In theory, this leaves these guys without a place to meet.

Except that Starbucks told the anti-gun organization that they really weren't interested in the issue. Note that they were not rude, nor rabid, nor were they taking a side; they simply weren't interested, as is their right.

Unfortunately for them, there is no winning answer here. To act by putting an on-premisis prohibition in place angers one group; to not act angers the other. They are put into a position where they really, very simply, cannot win. That is completely unfair to Starbucks, and I call on both sides of the issue to just please take the fight someplace else.

(Since someone will no doubt ask, for the record, I am not apathetic to the issue of gun rights. I also have no intention of expressing my opinion on this matter in this forum, as I don't have any intentions of letting my site become the center of a clusterfuck like Starbucks finds themselves in. Many who think they know me will probably guess wrong, while my friends MW, MH, RD and DS will most certainly guess correctly, as I come down on the same side of this issue as they do, though maybe not as ardently.)