Letter to Applebee's

[Ruark]

Sent this letter to Applebee's last night. Will post if I get a reply. Feel free to use it, edit it, whatever you want, just change the name of the business.
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My wife and I have eaten at Applebee's regularly since the 1990's. We love Applebee's, and I was very disappointed to see a 30.06 sign prohibiting concealed carry of firearms. You have lost our business. Please let me make a few comments:

Some businesses don't allow open carry because it can make some customers uncomfortable. That is true, and they have the right to do that with a "30.07" sign. The problem here is businesses that don't allow concealed carry (i.e. the 30.06 sign). A few points:

- CHL holders are among the safest people in our society. They have been trained, fingerprinted and background-checked. If they sneezed the wrong way 50 years ago, it comes up. Even extreme anti-gun Austin police chief Art Acevedo referred to CHL holders as "our jewels."

- Just as a reference point, the crime rate among active duty police officers is SEVEN TIMES that of CHL holders.

- Hundreds of times every day, all across the country, CHL holders (45 states allow carrying, remember) stop violent crimes and save lives. But these incidents are never reported in the liberal news media.

- It's important to remember that ONLY CHL holders can legally carry concealed weapons. Criminals, terrorists and crazies have ALWAYS carried them illegally, and always will. We currently have over 30,000 gun laws in this country, and they ignore every single one of them.

- Every mass killing has occurred in a "gun free zone," where people were not allowed to defend themselves, and had no choice but to lie there and be slaughtered like sheep. James Holmes visited eight different theatres in Colorado before picking the one in Aurora, although it was farthest from his home. Why? Because it was the only one that was a "gun free zone."

- I know it sounds like foil-hat paranoia to some, but the simple fact is that we live in an increasingly dangerous, unpredictable world. When I was a kid, many people didn't even have a key to their front door; if the milkman came and nobody was home, he would go into the kitchen and put the produce in the refrigerator. On holidays he'd find a plate of cookies. Kids' heroes were people like Thomas Edison, Amelia Earhart, John Glenn, or Mickey Mantle. Now it's Miley Cyrus and Lil' Wayne.

Every elementary and middle school campus had 200 bicycles parked in front. How many do you see now? Why? In many schools today, a student will be suspended for bringing a plastic knife to school in his lunch box. It used to be that no red-blooded American boy would be caught dead without a good pocketknife, and it wasn't uncommon for high school boys to bring their shotguns to school and keep them in their lockers, to do a little dove hunting on the way home. Speaking of guns, anybody could order them freely from the classified ads in the backs of outdoor magazines.

But those days are gone. "Mayberry, USA" no longer exists. We have to deal with the real world as it exists today, and for some, that means taking the responsibility of protecting yourself and your loved ones from the violence and danger that sadly permeates modern society. This is why people get CHLs. If you don't want to do that, if you don't want to take that responsibility, that's your decision, but please, please, for the love of God, don't prevent me from doing so.

[Oldgringo]

Why stir the pot? Your Applebees may be posted but mine is not. Why stir the pot?

[Teamless]

Why stir the pot? Your Applebees may be posted but mine is not. Why stir the pot?

I may not be the OP, but my answer to you would be, because 'mine' is posted. And I need to push them to understand the loss of business and the faulty reasoning they have in posting 30.06.

[TVGuy]

I'd consider leaving out some of the antagonistic language in letters to corporate. "Left wing media", "Tin-foil hats", etc. could cause them to give less consideration to your request. In the end it's about getting the policy changed, not getting into an argument.

[Oldgringo]

Why stir the pot? Your Applebees may be posted but mine is not. Why stir the pot?

I may not be the OP, but my answer to you would be, because 'mine' is posted. And I need to push them to understand the loss of business and the faulty reasoning they have in posting 30.06.

"mine"

[Oldgringo]

I'd consider leaving out some of the antagonistic language in letters to corporate. "Left wing media", "Tin-foil hats", etc. could cause them to give less consideration to your request. In the end it's about getting the policy changed, not getting into an argument.

"If you want to gather honey, don't kick over the beehive". - Dale Carnegie