a man's home is his castle

 

 

On July 18, 1989, the 21-year-old actress Rebecca Schaeffer was murdered at her Los Angeles home by Robert John Bardo, a mentally unstable man who had been stalking her. Schaeffer’s death helped lead to the passage in California of legislation aimed at preventing stalking.

Schaeffer was born November 6, 1967, in Eugene, Oregon. She worked as a teenage model and had a short stint on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live, but was best known for co-starring with Pam Dawber in the television sitcom My Sister Sam. Bardo, born in 1970, had written Schaeffer letters and unsuccessfully tried to gain access to the set of My Sister Sam, before showing up at her apartment on July 18, 1989. The obsessed fan had reportedly obtained the actress’s home address through a detective agency, which located it through records at the California Department of Motor Vehicles. On the day of the murder, Schaeffer reportedly complied with Bardo’s request for an autograph when he appeared at her home and then asked him to leave. He returned a short time later and the actress, who reportedly was waiting for someone to deliver a script, answered the door again. Bardo then shot and killed her.

Arrested the next day in Tucson, Arizona,  Bardo was later prosecuted by the Los Angeles County district attorney Marcia Clark, who later became famous as a prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson trial. In 1991, Bardo was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In 1994, California passed the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, which prevented the Department of Motor Vehicles from releasing private addresses.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sitcom-actress-murdered-death-prompts-anti-stalking-legislation

Later the same year, a federal law was also passed.

The Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994 (also referred to as the "DPPA"), Title XXX of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, is a United States federal statute governing the privacy and disclosure of personal information gathered by state Departments of Motor Vehicles.

The law was passed in 1994. It was introduced by Democratic Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia in 1992, after an increase in some opponents of abortion using public driving license databases to track down and harass abortion providers and patients. Prominent among such cases was physician Susan Wicklund, who faced protests and harassment including her house being picketed for a month. The law is currently codified at Chapter 123 of Title 18 of the United States Code.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Driver%27s_Privacy_Protection_Act

The law actually did not go into effect until 1997. The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation provided details on how the law works in that state.

https://www.dot.state.pa.us/Public/DVSPubsForms/BDL/BDL%20Fact%20Sheets/fs-fd.pdf#:~:text=FEDERAL%20DRIVER%E2%80%99S%20PRIVACY%20PROTECTION%20ACT%20The%20Federal%20Driver%E2%80%99s,requirements%20are%20in%20place%20across%20the%20United%20States.

Despite the passage of both state and federal laws, an individual’s home address can still be obtained.

In 2005, the husband and mother of U.S. District judge Joan Lefkow were shot and killed in Evanston by an aggrieved former plaintiff who had appeared in her court and then, angered by her courtroom decisions, hid in her basement apparently with the intent to kill her. Instead, he meted out revenge on her family.

In July of 2020, the family of judge Esther Salas was attacked. Her son was killed, and her husband was seriously injured.

Federal judges are entitled to a home and court security systems and protection by the U.S. Marshals Service, which has provided security for federal judges and courtrooms across the country since 1789. The killing of Salas’ son and the shooting of her husband allegedly by an anti-feminist lawyer highlights the problem on which Lefkow and the Federal Judges Association have spent over a decade sounding the alarm: judges are being threatened and attacked, often by those angered by decisions made from the bench.

According to data compiled by the Marshals Service, some 4,449 documented threats and “inappropriate communication” were recorded against protected federal judges, jurors and other members of the federal judiciary in 2019. That number is unusually high: On average, the service has seen 1,350 threats and inappropriate communications against such individuals annually since 2015.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/attack-judge-salas-family-highlights-concerns-over-judicial-safety-n1234476

The Federal election of 2020 really brought out the crazy people.

On October 8, 2020, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced the arrests of 13 men suspected of orchestrating a domestic terror plot to kidnap American politician Gretchen Whitmer, the Governor of Michigan, and otherwise using violence to overthrow the state government. Half of the suspects were tied to a paramilitary militia group that called themselves the Wolverine Watchmen Six of the suspects were charged in federal court, while the other seven were charged with state crimes. A week later, a fourteenth suspect was arrested and charged in state court.

One man has pleaded guilty while two have been acquitted. Two additional suspects' trials ended in a hung jury, and prosecutors have announced they will re-try them.

The group had planned to kidnap Whitmer from her vacation cabin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gretchen_Whitmer_kidnapping_plot

Two election workers in Georgia (Ruby Freedom and her mother) received death threats because members of the Trump cult thought that they were stuffing ballots foe Joe Biden.

https://www.businessinsider.com/2-georgia-election-workers-targeted-trump-sue-gateway-pundit-defamation-2021-12

 In Arizona, state representative Rusty Bowers (who testified for the January 6 committee) refused to go along with the Big Lie. As a result, he was harassed at his home by Trump supporters, who were oblivious to the fact that Bower’s terminally ill daughter was in the house at the time.

Katie Hobbs, the Arizona Secretary of State, also defended the results of the 2020 election. But that defense also made Hobbs the target of violent threats, including at least once when protesters showed up outside her home chanting, "We are watching you." The threats extended to Hobbs' family: her husband of 26 years, Patrick Goodman, a child therapist, and their children, a 23-year-old son now working in marketing and 20-year-old daughter balancing school and work. Her son's phone number was leaked and he was harassed, Hobbs said.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2022/07/12/katie-hobbs-arizona-governors-office-primary-election-2022/7500222001/

Recently, judge Kavanagh was harassed at his home by people who were angered by the Supreme Court’s foolish reversal of Roe v. Wade.

For most of my life, many households in America would get the White Pages delivered to their homes at no cost. Although I have not seen that happen for quite a while, we had been getting the Yellow Pages delivered to us until very recently.

The White Pages are still available, online, and the free search still provides a great deal of information. If you want further details, like you address and phone number, a small fee would be involved.

https://www.whitepages.com/name/Thomas-Brennan/Tucson-AZ?fs=1&searchedName=thomas%20brennan&searchedLocation=Tucson,%20AZ

Since we are all on a variety of social media platforms, at least some of our personal information can be obtained fairly easily.

There is no sure-fire way to protect your privacy, and pubic officials are even more vulnerable. The only option that we all have is to rely on law enforcement agencies to protect us – which is precisely how Governor Whitmer’s tormentors got brough to justice.

I’m a firm believer in the fact that it’s not necessary to own a gun to protect your privacy, but you DO need to be aware of any unusual activity around your property.

After all, a man’s home is his castle.

God, guns and Trump

 

The House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill on gun safety 234 to 193 today, , exactly one month after a mass shooting in Texas took the lives of 19 children and 2 adults.

The Senate passed its version of the bill late on Thursday night by a 65-33 vote, and it now goes to President Joe Biden to sign into law. It is the first gun control measure to come out of Congress in nearly three decades.

The narrow bill focuses on mental health and school safety, and includes incentives for states to pass "red-flag laws."

 The legislation resulted from negotiations among 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats that began after two mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas, in May.

"This bill is a compromise," said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who led the negotiations, right before the Senate vote began. "It doesn't do everything I want. But what we are doing will save thousands of lives without violating anyone's Second Amendment rights."

 

https://www.npr.org/2022/06/23/1107234183/senate-passes-gun-control-bill-and-sends-it-to-the-house

If a mass shooting is defined as an incident where at least four people are killed in a public location, the number of shootings since Sandy Hook  has remained relatively stable. But mass shootings have become deadlier.

The number of mass shootings since 2012 varies depending on how you define a mass shooting. Mother Jones lists 43 mass shootings since 2013, while Vox lists a much larger 1,962. But no matter how you look at it, there have been many mass shootings since Sandy Hook.

 https://hellogiggles.com/news/mass-shootings-since-sandy-hook

 The last Federal regulation of firearms occurred in 1994, when assault weapons were banned for a period of 10 years – but the ban expired in 2004.

There are two reasons why it has taken nearly 30 years to pass any more meaningful legislation:

1)    Money

 

The NRA has contributed millions of dollars to members of Congress. Nearly 80 members of Congress have received NRA money, and John McCain is the primary recipient, with contributions in excess of $7 million.

In 2017, the NRA spent more than $5.1 million on lobbying, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' database. The previous year's total reached $3.2 million.

In 2016, the NRA spend nearly $30 million to help Donald Trump get elected.

 https://www.businessinsider.com/nra-political-contributions-congressional-candidates-house-senate-2018\

2)   Religion

 The AR-15-style rifle used in the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last month was made by an arms manufacturer that regards selling weapons as part of its Christian mission. In a state where Gov. Greg Abbott declared, six months after an earlier massacre, “The problem is not guns; it’s hearts without God,” the gun’s provenance challenged pious suggestions that declining religiosity might bear some of the blame

Daniel Defense, the Georgia company whose gun enabled the slaughter at Robb Elementary School, presents its corporate identity in explicitly religious terms. At the time of the shooting, the company’s social media presence included an image of a toddler with a rifle in his lap above the text of Proverbs 22:6 (“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it”). For Easter, it posted a photograph of a gun and a cross resting on scriptural passages recounting the Resurrection.

Its weapons have now been found at the scenes of two mass shootings — Uvalde and Las Vegas — that left a total of 81 people dead.

 While some might suggest a Christian firearms company is a contradiction in terms, Daniel Defense is hardly alone. According to a Public Religion Research Institute study, evangelicals have a higher rate of gun ownership than other religious groups. Across the country, they account for a significant share not only of the demand but of the supply.

In Florida, Spike’s Tactical (“the finest AR-15s on the planet”) makes a line of Crusader weapons adorned with a quote from the Psalms. Missouri-based CMMG (“the leading manufacturer of AR15 rifles, components and small parts”) advertises its employees’ “commitment to meet each and every morning to pray for God’s wisdom in managing the enormous responsibility that comes with this business.” And in Colorado, Cornerstone Arms explains that it is so named because “Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of our business, our family and our lives” and the “Second Amendment to our Constitution is the cornerstone of the freedom we enjoy as American citizens.”

For many American Christians, Jesus, guns and the Constitution are stitched together as durably as a Kevlar vest.

“We are in business, we believe, to be a supporter of the Gospel,” Daniel Defense’s founder, Marty Daniel, told Breitbart News in 2017. “And, therefore, a supporter of the Second Amendment.”

 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/opinion/uvalde-evangelicals-guns.html

In 1964, long before the Moral Majority was founded by Jerry Falwell Sr. in 197, Barry Goldwater offered a few thoughts on religious people:

“There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.”

On the way to Colorado in the fall of 2020, we passed through Show Low, Arizona, which is in the heart of the most conservative legislative district in Arizona. Not only did we see numerous Trump/Pence signs, we saw at least one billboard that read

GOD, GUNS AND TRUMP

The frustrating part of a democracy is that sometimes progress can be made in one area, and it can be reversed in other areas.

Although federal regulation of firearms just expanded, Judge Clarence Thomas just voided a New York State law that had imposed controls on the carrying of concealed weapons, thus weakening state control.

Almost simultaneously, the Supreme court just threw out 50 years of precedent and overturned Roe V. Wade, which INCREASED state control but DIMINISHED federal control of abortion.

Inevitably, the state of New York will do everything it can to counter the decision of Clarence Thomas, and “pro-choice” groups in various states will do everything that they can to assist those who are adversely affected by the Supreme Court ruling.

 

In the meantime, try not to get too worked up over each decision. Life is short, and the sun will still come up tomorrow.

 

 

How Starbucks saved my life

 

There was a time in America when the average guy could work 25, 30 or 40 years with the same company, retire with a defined benefit pension plan, and (in some case) get a fancy watch.

 I know a few people my age who worked a lifetime with one company, retired with a defined benefit pension, and lived decades after retirement in comfortable circumstances – but that is no longer the norm.

A few years ago, I read a book titled “How Starbucks Saved My Life”. In many ways, what Michael Gates Gill experienced was similar to what I (and thousands of other people) experienced during what normally be their peak earning years.

When I was 51 years old, the department that I worked in shut down. Although I tried to find a similar position at another insurance company, those jobs no longer existed. Ultimately, I got a job as a commissioned life insurance agent, but my new income was substantially less that I was making before, so my dream of retiring with $1,000,000 in the bank and a paid off mortgage became dreams I would never achieve.

In his fifties, Michael Gates Gill had it all: a big house in the suburbs, a loving family, and a top job at an ad agency with a six-figure salary. By the time he turned sixty, he had lost everything except his Ivy League education and his sense of entitlement. First, he was downsized at work. Next, an affair ended his twenty-year marriage. Then, he was diagnosed with a slow-growing brain tumor, prognosis undetermined. Around the same time, his girlfriend gave birth to a son. Gill had no money, no health insurance, and no prospects.

One day as Gill sat in a Manhattan Starbucks with his last affordable luxury—a latté—brooding about his misfortune and quickly dwindling list of options, a 28-year-old Starbucks manager named Crystal Thompson approached him, half joking, to offer him a job. With nothing to lose, he took it, and went from drinking coffee in a Brooks Brothers suit to serving it in a green uniform. For the first time in his life, Gill was a minority--the only older white guy working with a team of young African-Americans. He was forced to acknowledge his ingrained prejudices and admit to himself that, far from being beneath him, his new job was hard. And his younger coworkers, despite having half the education and twice the personal difficulties he’d ever faced, were running circles around him.

The other baristas treated Gill with respect and kindness despite his differences, and he began to feel a new emotion: gratitude. Crossing over the Starbucks bar was the beginning of a dramatic transformation that cracked his world wide open. When all of his defenses and the armor of entitlement had been stripped away, a humbler, happier and gentler man remained. One that everyone, especially Michael’s kids, liked a lot better.

The backdrop to Gill's story is a nearly universal cultural phenomenon: the Starbucks experience. In How Starbucks Saved My Life, we step behind the counter of one of the world's best-known companies and discover how it all really works, who the baristas are and what they love (and hate) about their jobs. Inside Starbucks, as Crystal and Mike’s friendship grows, we see what wonders can happen when we reach out across race, class, and age divisions to help a fellow human being.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/427475.How_Starbucks_Saved_My_Life

When I lived in Aurora, Illinois, I met a man named Jim who suffered some enormous setbacks when he was in his 50’s. His story can be read at the link below:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-world-trade-center-fell-on-my-head.html

Michael Gates Gill is not the only person whose life was transformed by Starbucks, but the latest example will surprise you.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/19/business/starbucks-union-rhodes-scholar.html

Jaz Brisack became a barista for the same reasons that talented young people have long chosen their career paths: a mix of idealism and ambition.

Most weekend mornings, Jaz Brisack gets up around 5, wills her semiconscious body into a Toyota Prius and winds her way through Buffalo, to the Starbucks on Elmwood Avenue. After a supervisor unlocks the door, she clocks in, checks herself for COVID symptoms and helps get the store ready for customers.

“I’m almost always on bar if I open,” said Ms. Brisack, who has a thrift-store aesthetic and long reddish-brown hair that she parts down the middle. “I like steaming milk, pouring lattes.”

The Starbucks door is not the only one that has been opened for her. As a University of Mississippi senior in 2018, Ms. Brisack was one of 32 Americans who won Rhodes scholarships, which fund study in Oxford, England.

 Many students seek the scholarship because it can pave the way to a career in the top ranks of law, academia, government or business. They are motivated by a mix of ambition and idealism.

Ms. Brisack became a barista for similar reasons: She believed it was simply the most urgent claim on her time and her many talents.

When she joined Starbucks in late 2020, not a single one of the company’s 9,000 U.S. locations had a union. Ms. Brisack hoped to change that by helping to unionize its stores in Buffalo.

Improbably, she and her co-workers have far exceeded their goal. Since December, when her store became the only corporate-owned Starbucks in the United States with a certified union, more than 150 other stores have voted to unionize, and more than 275 have filed paperwork to hold elections. Their actions come amid an increase in public support for unions, which last year reached its highest point since the mid-1960s, and a growing consensus among center-left experts that rising union membership could move millions of workers into the middle class.

 Howard Schultz has written three books about his experience as the founder of Starbucks – and I have read all of them.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=howars+schultz&i=stripbooks&crid=18X55B0LPNYGG&sprefix=howard+schultz%2Cstripbooks%2C129&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

In comparison to other companies, Starbucks is a pretty good place to work, due to the benefits it provides to its employees. At a time of rising prices, record corporate profits, and demanding work conditions, the time is now ripe for unions to rise again – and the store in Buffalo is no longer the only Starbucks that has a union.

A few years ago, employees at the Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga tried to form a union, and several Amazon warehouse locations have done the same.

Last week, employees of an Apple store in Maryland voted to form a union.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/18/technology/apple-union-maryland.html?action=click&module=Well&pgtype=Homepage&section=Technology

My dad was a union man.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2021/05/my-dad-mail-carrier.html

When he joined the Post Office in 1954, union membership was at its peak. The Republican Party felt that unions were so important that union membership was a part of the 1956 Republican national platform.

https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1956

Here’s the relevant portion of the platform:

In addition, the Eisenhower Administration has enforced more vigorously and effectively than ever before, the laws which protect the working standards of our people.

Workers have benefited by the progress which has been made in carrying out the programs and principles set forth in the 1952 Republican platform. All workers have gained and unions have grown in strength and responsibility, and have increased their membership by 2 million.

Furthermore, the process of free collective bargaining has been strengthened by the insistence of this Administration that labor and management settle their differences at the bargaining table without the intervention of the Government. This policy has brought to our country an unprecedented period of labor-management peace and understanding.

We applaud the effective, unhindered, collective bargaining which brought an early end to the 1956 steel strike, in contrast to the six months' upheaval, Presidential seizure of the steel industry and ultimate Supreme Court intervention under the last Democrat Administration.

**********************

The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the most prestigious international scholarship programs in the world. Its founder, Cecil John Rhodes, wanted to promote unity between English-speaking nations and instill a sense of civic-minded leadership and moral fortitude in future leaders, irrespective of their chosen career paths. Initially restricted to male applicants from countries that are today within the Commonwealth, Germany and the United States, the scholarship is now open to applicants from all backgrounds and genders around the world. Since its creation, controversy has surrounded its initial exclusion of women, its historical failure to select black Africans, and Cecil Rhodes's own standing as a British imperialist. At present Rhodes scholarships are offered to all the countries both for male and female for postgraduate studies at Oxford university.

Rhodes scholars have achieved distinction as politicians, academics, scientists and doctors, authors, entrepreneurs, and Nobel Prize winners. Many scholars have become heads of state or heads of government, including President of the United States Bill Clinton, President of Pakistan Wasim Sajjad, Prime Minister of Jamaica Norman Manley, Prime Minister of Malta Dom Mintoff, and Prime Ministers of Australia Tony Abbott, Bob Hawke, and Malcolm Turnbull. Other notable Rhodes Scholars include Nobel Prize-winning scientist and discoverer of penicillin Howard Florey, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa Edwin Cameron, Nobel Prize-winning economist Michael Spence, Australian High Court Justice James Edelman, journalist and American television host Rachel Maddow, author Naomi Wolf, musician Kris Kristofferson, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ronan Farrow

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes_Scholarship

Some of the people who have been awarded the Rhodes scholarship have become wealthy – and Bill Clinton is likely the best example – but that’s not the point of the scholarships.

Listed below are some of the best-known recipients:

https://people.howstuffworks.com/13-famous-rhodes-scholars.htm

 There are those who might think that Jaz Brisack is wasting her potential by working at Starbucks – but Cecil Rhodes himself would disagree.

In his last will, Cecil Rhodes provided for the establishment of the Rhodes Scholarship. Over the course of the previous half-century, governments, universities and individuals in the settler colonies had been establishing travelling scholarships for this purpose. The Rhodes awards fit the established pattern. The scholarship enabled male students from territories under British rule or formerly under British rule and from Germany to study at Rhodes's alma mater, the University of Oxford. Rhodes' aims were to promote leadership marked by public spirit and good character, and to "render war impossible" by promoting friendship between the great powers.

Eventually, women also became eligible for the scholarships – and Jaz Brisack was not the first woman to be so honored.

Starbucks may not have saved Jaz Brisack’s life – but she fulfilled Cecil Rhodes’s idea of “promoting leadership by marked public spirit and good character”.

 

 

 

 

coffee and guns

 

 

After I polish off my annual steak tomorrow (and baked potato) our desert will be a triple berry pie that is said to bring tears to your eyes. Naturally, the pie will be topped with some vanilla bean ice cream, and will be washed down with a cup of coffee – but a very special cup of coffee.

Brian learned about a coffee recently that is said to be extraordinarily delicious. The company that makes is the Black Rifle Coffee Company, and it’s got an interesting history.

Black Rifle Coffee Company (BRCC) is a coffee company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States, owned by former members of the armed forces of the United States. It gained national attention in 2017, when it employed about 50 people, after pledging to hire 10,000 veterans in response to Starbucks's pledge to hire 10,000 refugees.

The company was founded in December 2014 by former Green Beret Evan Hafer. He began by selling a small volume of his "Freedom Roast" coffee through a friend's apparel website. The coffee sold well, so Hafer launched his own brand and website through which to sell his coffee and branded accessories. The company specializes in its online, direct-to-consumer coffee subscription service, which had over 100,000 subscribers as of 2020. In addition to online sales, Black Rifle Coffee Company has physical coffee shops in Utah, Texas, and Georgia. The coffee is also distributed at some firing ranges, 5.11 Tactical stores, and Bass Pro Shops.

BRCC has produced a number of sometimes controversial social media videos which combine military humor with hipster jokes and guns.

In 2017, BRCC expanded into Canada with a division based in Alberta and led by CEO Darren Weeks.

In 2018, BRCC opened a new coffee roasting facility in Manchester, Tennessee, as part of a $6 million investment in the state. It also launched Coffee or Die Magazine, an online news and lifestyle publication that reports on military, veteran, law enforcement, and coffee topics.

In 2018, the company's gross revenue totaled $30 million. In 2019, BRCC employed more than 200 people — 40 percent of them veterans of the U.S. military. At the time of reporting, their products were available at 1,700 retail locations across the country. On September 29, 2019, BRCC opened its first stand-alone licensed coffee shop in Boerne, Texas. According to the Washington Examiner circa 2021 they employed approximately 550 people, half of whom were veterans, military spouses or reservists.

The company expanded in 2020 with the release of ready-to-drink canned iced coffee. In March 2020, BRCC launched a coffee-donation campaign to support medical and emergency workers, quarantined military personnel and their families, and others working to mitigate the national and global impact of COVID-19. In May, a Canadian gun ban enacted following the 2020 Nova Scotia attacks was mistakenly thought to include a ban on the coffee company, but further inspection revealed that the ban was actually applied to a similarly named Arizona-based "Black Rifle Company". In July, BRCC provided a $15,000 grant to the Hunter Seven Foundation, supporting a new round of medical research exploring the effects of toxic exposure in Afghanistan. A July 2021, article in The New York Times, Hafer describes his vision for growth of the physical franchised stores using retired military NCO's. He sees Navy petty officers and Army staff sergeants joining the company and running a franchise of their own rather than joining the local police force in their hometowns.

In November 2021, Black Rifle Coffee Company merged with SilverBox Engaged Merger Corporation via a special purpose acquisition company in an effort to raise funds for expansion and to go public. The company has a valuation of approximately $1.7 billion. The merger completed in February 2022.

Black Rifle Coffee Company's corporate image is built on its conservative politics and supporting veterans. Over half of its staff are former military.

The company maintains a pro-military, pro-gun, pro-police image and has publicly supported the politics of former US President Donald Trump through actions such as publishing a (since-deleted) blog post that supported Trump's then-current proposal of an immigration ban from Muslim majority countries. The company's political stance has attracted attention from Fox News,^]and it has been endorsed by conservative broadcast personality Sean Hannity and Donald Trump Jr. A 2021 Salon article reported that BRCC is trying to draw a line and distance themselves from the far-right after their logos and gear appeared on Kyle Rittenhouse, a teen who was acquitted after killing two people and injuring another during a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Black Rifle Coffee's symbols were also present on rioters who trespassed the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

The company's brand is tied closely to its pro-gun and socially conservative image as well as close links with American military and law enforcement.

In 2017 BRCC launched an advertising campaign based on their plan to hire 10,000 veterans. While it was conceived previously^. BRCC launched the campaign after well-known coffee purveyor Starbucks Corporation launched an advertising campaign centered around their plan to hire 10,000 refugees. BRCC released a meme on social media that juxtaposed an image of ISIS fighters photoshopped with Starbucks cups next to an image of American soldiers in combat, which read: “Starbucks vows to hire 10,000 refugees,” and “Black Rifle Coffee Company vows to hire 10,000 veterans.” Company posts associated with the ad campaign labelled Starbucks “Hipsterbucks.” While Hafer criticized what he saw as a publicity stunt by Starbucks, BRCC also received similar criticism around their ad campaign, especially because of the size disparity between BRCC and Starbucks as well as the suggestion in BRCC's ad campaign that Starbucks doesn't hire veterans. Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had in 2013 launched a similar program to hire 10,000 veterans in the next five years and that by 2017 they had hired 8,000 of them. As of February 2017 BRCC employed 52 people in total. Hafer responded that BRCC and Starbucks are very different companies, and that their size disparity meant that BRCC's proposal was a much more ambitious plan. In a 2017 interview with Vice News, founder Hafer commended Starbucks' veteran hiring program and clarified that he supports all hiring pushes as long as the message is a positive one.

For a campaign in July 2019, BRCC donated a bag of coffee to a police officer for every bag purchased, in response to a story that six Tempe, Arizona police officers had been asked to leave a branch of Starbucks.

BRCC rejected a potential logo for one of their coffee bags featuring a Renaissance-style rendering of Saint Michael the Archangel, a patron saint of military personnel, shooting a short-barreled rifle. The design was rejected when Hafer was informed by a friend at The Pentagon that the image of Saint Michael standing on the neck of Satan was being used by white supremacists because of the resemblance to George Floyd's murder.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Rifle_Coffee_Company

 

If you are wondering why there are more guns than people in America, here’s the reason:

• In the US, there are approximately 50,271 more gun stores than McDonald's. Specifically, there are 14,146 McDonald's (as of December 2016) and 64,417 firearm dealers nationwide (as of September 2017).
• There are approximately 32,927 more gun stores than coffee shops (31,490 as of December 2015).
• There are approximately 39,017 more gun stores than grocery stores (25,400 as of December 2016).
• There are approximately 54,017 more gun stores than 7-11s (10,400 as of 2017). 
• There are approximately 3,578 more gun stores than pharmacies (60,839 as of 2014).

https://www.businessinsider.com/gun-dealers-stores-mcdonalds-las-vegas-shooting-2017-1

Not all guns are sold at guns stores, of course, since there are numerous gun shows in just about every state, and there are also sales between private individuals.

When Brian went online today to find out where to buy the coffee, the closest location was a gun store show near his home. His visit today was the 2^nd time in his life that he has been in a gun story, which is exactly 2 times more than I have been in a gun story.

He described the gun store as “old school”. It was not well lit, there were guns covering most of the wall surface of the store, and there was a tip jar on the counter for the NRA.

After doing a little research, I discovered that I could buy Black Rifle Coffee at a Speedway story that’s only a couple of miles from our house.

 If I like the coffee, I may have to buy some in the future, but there is NO WAY that I’m going to buy the stuff at a gun store.