McDonald's gas station (courtesy mcdonalds.com)

Last week, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz wrote an open letter to his legally armed customers: don’t pack heat in my stores. (And we really don’t appreciate that open carry thing.) It was a “request” rather than a legally binding ban. Nonetheless, the non-ban ban warmed the cockles of the gun control industry’s heart. And so businessinsider.com reached out to McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts to see where those corporate giants stand on the issue of guns in stores. Here’s McDonald’s statement . . .

“We recognize that there is a lot of emotion and passion surrounding the issue of firearms and open carry weapons laws.

While we respect the differing views of all our customers, McDonald’s company-owned restaurants follow local, state and federal laws as it relates to open carry weapons in our restaurants.

For franchisee-owned restaurants, operational decisions regarding open carry weapon laws are made by the independent franchisee.

That said, as with all aspects of operating a McDonald’s restaurant, we expect our franchisees and their crew to follow local, state and federal laws.”

So Ray Kroc’s mob expect franchisees to run their stores in accordance with local and state firearm laws, but leave it to the franchisees to decide whether or not to allow open carry, but expect their franchisees to run their stores in accordance with local and state firearm laws. Clear as mud.

Speaking of brown colored liquids, Dunkin’ Donuts is not conflicted on the subject. Here’s their statement:

“Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins restaurants are owned and operated by individual franchisees who are required to follow all federal, state and local laws with regard to firearms.”

Perhaps the Dunkin Donuts dudes recognize that A) their stores usually have more cops in situ than a police station on a Tuesday night, and B) their food poses the greatest risk to their customers’ health and longevity. Or something.

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39 COMMENTS

  2. Basically, he expects local franchises to stick to state and local laws but gives them the option to make their own decisions.

    • Sounds fine by me. If there’s no “Gun-Free” sticker, I carry concealed. If there is a sticker, I carry concealed.

  3. Hmm i think i found a solution to police response time issues merely put a dunkin on every corner in every town in the nation then cops are always a block away or criminals start dying off from heart attacks and too many doughnuts its a win win

    • Jay, in Connecticut there are Dunkin Donuts across the street from one another. Its made the news even. As I recall the reasoning was so cars didnt have to make a left turn and pedestrians didnt have to cross the road.

    • I recall an episode of Monster Garage where Jesse James installed a donut deep-fryer in the back seat of a police cruiser. Pretty funny.

  4. Okay, so in summary:

    In company-owned McDonald’s, when open carry is legal in the state, you don’t have a problem.

    When it is NOT a company-owned store it’s up to the Franchise owner.

    McDonalds will not back a store owner who decides to forbid open carry, as they expect them to “follow the law”. Though as a privately owned Restaurant, it is within the individual owner’s rights to deny open carry anyway.

    That seem about right?

    Clear as mud indeed >.>

    • My take on it is

      Corporate is saying: IDGAF
      Private Owner: May vary

      Basically, if you don’t see a sign that says “Gunner don’t let these fluorescent lights shine on your guns blued behind”, you should be okay.

    • My take is do what you want as long as it’s legal. Denying carry in your store is not against the law, so they would be following the law if they do not allow it. The only thing is that if open carry is legal in your state, can you ban ONLY open carry? I would assume the sign is a no weapon sign, and not a no openly carried weapon sign.

      Basically McD’s is saying, do what you want as long as you don’t break the law.

      • Honestly if Starbucks wanted to stay neutral all they actually had to say was

        “Hey, um guys, we sell F’ing coffee. Please don’t turn our stores into political mosh pits. Just buy a few over priced high calorie mediocre tasting cups of coffee, maybe some extrodinarily over priced piece of cake and umm you know, then drive/walk/hop/teleport somewhere the hell else and do it there.”

        That’d be so neutral that Sweden would bite its lower with a Clintonesque nod of approval.

  5. While I habitually and routinely ignore the no guns stickers I have been looking for them lately. They are rare around here, none at any of the restaurants I’ve visited, convenience stores, really almost no where.

    I have business cards in my wallet to distribute to businesses that prohibit firearms that explain many of the arguments you’re all familiar with but the headline is No Gun= No Money. It’s an explanation of why I, and many like me wont do business there. Probably not effective with major corporations, but it sure carries weight with on offs and small businesses.

    If corporate America goes anti gun anti carry perhaps it will restore our investment in smaller local businesses, and that’s not a bad thing.

  6. Good to see that Dunkin Diabetes and McCoronary’s are repeating the old Star*ucks line, a line worked until Schultz tried and failed so miserably at threading the needle.

    It won’t be long before Moms Demand Everything tries to screw with both companies. Which will fail, because those skanks don’t eat icky burgers or cop-killer donuts.

    • Moms Demand Action do eat trouser snake and that is a powerful persuader for those of the male gender such as politicians.

      • Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn have said they used that tactic frequently to persuade, infiltrate and blackmail.

  7. It occurs to me that moms demand action could make some serious money by shaking down the fast food business, kinda like reverends Jackson and Sharpton did the Fortune 500.

    • I’m sorry, but I just don’t see how anyone can take those airhead moms seriously, especially corporate giants with a customer base that isn’t going to change their favorite buying habits just because some anti gun cows have a bird over a company’s unwillingness to bend their corporate will to the mom’s political demands.

  9. I’m in favor of guns. That’s no secret. I carry concealed most everywhere and that is my choice. I put the rigor mortis in the “cold dead hands” meme. I do as well, support open carry. It’s not my problem if someone is disturbed by guns. Get counseling. get over your fear of inanimate objects. I don’t do it because i believe it’s tactically inferior, and I choose not to draw attention to myself.

    That being said, Howard Schultz has rights as well.

    I can absolutely see the point that he may not want his store to be the focal point of pro open carry gatherings, which, in truth, are political demonstrations. So what he is doing in essence is trying to keep politics out of his store. I would be all for that except….

    Howard Schultz is also a damned lying hypocrite of the first order. He and his money to influence society and political campaigns all the time. He uses his money and influence to promote a left wing and morally bankrupt agenda.

    So his idiotic move to ask the armed citizen to stay away, but without instituting a ban is just a typical HS weasel move.

    And it bothered me to NO END that open carriers went to so much trouble to lick the shoes of a guy who is obviously as much a hard left anti American, anti American values fascist this side of Michael Bloomberg as you can get.

    I don’t mind you asserting your right. Go right ahead. But making ANY private business who DID NOT invite you a focal point for your group political activity? What the hell are you thinking? I do believe any of you could have walked in on occasion, plainly armed, and Starbucks would not have said a word. But you self centered idiots can’t see the difference between tolerance and and an invitation. You just kept pushing, and made yourself a bad guest, and have been asked to leave the party.

    I quit going to Starbucks long ago. Because my world of right and wrong extends beyond gun ownership. Welcome to my Starbucks-less world, gun owning suckers who will sell out the rest of your value system to drool over not so obvious (in fact non existent) support from someone you should NEVER have associated with in the first place. Wake the hell up, and get out of league with the devil. And all those like him. Gun people are far to quick to strike up an association with someone they perceive as pro-gun or even neutral, and lavish praise, money, and drool on them. And a lot of them are laughing at you, taking your money, and finding new ways to destroy the country with it. Stop being a bunch of shoe shine boys.Stop picking the crazy chick.

    And what the hell were you doing in there in the first place? You should be drinking boiled coffee out of a tin cup, not that hipster dreck anyways.

  10. Now hold on … MDA and other such emotional knee-jerks started a boycott* on Starbucks. The Human Rights Community didn’t want Starbucks to have their bottom line hurt, so we started a “buycott” to keep them going. Several people decided to openly carry firearms so that the company knew exactly who had their back.

    And WE are the bad guys?

    *Note: If my timeline of events is incorrect, please feel free to show me the light.

    • But we didnt need to flood Starbucks to show them they wont lose business. Moms Not Getting Action planned to boycot them only on Saturdays. There is deffinatley less than a million of them and probably around 20,000* Starbucks stores. Do the math, its a p!ss poor “boycott” that wouldnt have scratched Starbucks wallet.

      *Im guestimating 20,000 based on a quick search which showed almost 13,000 stores this time last year

  11. What part don’t you understand? Their policy is for their directly owned stores to follow the applicable laws. They expect their franchisees to do the same, but they can’t, or won’t, order them to do so.

    At least that’s what I get from it. Presumably, McDonalds has no official opinion. And why should they? They’re in business to provide convenient, delicious food to their customers, not to get embroiled in political jousting.

  12. I will continue not buying any Starbucks product. Not as any kind of political statement, but simply because I do not like them. I like coffee. And I like my coffee to taste like coffee. I take it black, no sugar. A request that usually gets you puzzled looks at Starbucks. And, honestly, any freeze dry I get out of a paper filter at home is just enough better than any drip-filter I can get from a national chain that I think I can justify the financial benefits as well.

    Similarly, I worked at a McDonald’s in high school. I hated it, and the sight of most of their food being prepared was enough to turn me off of it. Two federal jobs later, and I’d rather have an MRE than a value meal any day (within reason. I’d take a double cheeseburger and fries over the cheese omelet, if those are the only options.) So I will continue to not eat there, either. Besides, we have a Culver’s in the same general area, and besides my personal preference, everything I’ve seen from them shows Second Amendment support. I try to limit my fast food intake in general, anyway.

    I’m hours away from the nearest Dunkin’. I’ve never tried their coffee, and we have a great independent bakery in town that sort of wins the race for when I’m in the mood for baked goods. I’m not sure on their carry policy, if they have one, but we live in a sort of isolated semi-urban environment, where it seems it’s just accepted that almost everyone at least owns a few guns. So they’re probably not all that concerned.

    I will continue to not buy the products I mentioned. I also won’t buy any upcoming products from any companies I don’t currently support if and when they make their own potentially inflammatory statements.

  13. I don’t know what the big deal here is, guys. If you carry concealed that means your handgun is CONCEALED and in my state and most others a private business owner has EVERY RIGHT to do whatever he wants to do with his property. If somehow he finds out you have a handgun on you and he does not want guns on HIS PROPERTY he can ask you to leave, and so, you leave. Or if you want to be a major jerk you make a federal case out of it, the police come and you get a ticket or arrested or both.

    If you want your freedom to carry a handgun respected than respect the freedom of a private property owner to do what he wants to do on HIS PROPERTY. It is his, not your’s.

    Don’t like it? Don’t go there. Period.

    Big deal.

    Grow up people.

    • Indeed. And in Texas, there’s a legally-binding sign for that, the 30.06. So, Starbucks should be putting them up or STFUing.

  14. Following state and local laws doesn’t mean guns are allowed… many states permit (heh) businesses to forbid weapons by law.

  15. McDonalds franchisee asked one of our Georgia Carry members to not open carry in his store. Meh…. private property, that’s his right… moving on….

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