Heat builds on both sides of open-carry gun debate

First it was Starbucks.

Then Kurk Kirby, a Vancouver man cited last month for the unlawful carrying of a weapon.

One tried to stay above the fray, while a prosecutor is likely to argue the other made a point to become part of discussion over open-carry handgun laws.

Regardless, both fueled smoldering passions on both sides of the debate.

Area gun proponents say they’re planning an open-carry barbecue to help educate the public on gun laws, while the Vancouver Chapter of the Million Mom March visited four Starbucks shops one day last month in protest of the coffee giant’s decision to allow holstered heat inside its cafes.

Starbucks announced its decision to defer to state laws over firearms possession after a couple of other large chains, including Peet’s Coffee & Tea, sided with the Brady Campaign and banned guns from their premises.

“We comply with local laws and statutes in all the communities we serve. In this case, 43 of the 50 U.S. states have open carry weapon laws. Where these laws don’t exist, we comply with laws that prohibit the open carrying of weapons.,” Starbucks said in a March 3 statement.

The local debate gained momentum when Kirby was issued a citation alleging unlawful carrying of a weapon after business owners and customers at a strip mall told investigators he was “giving everyone the eyeball with his hand on his gun” and looked as if “he wanted to draw attention to himself,” according to police records. Kirby was ticketed March 19 outside the Albertsons grocery store, 5000 E. Fourth Plain Blvd.

A day before Kirby was ticketed, he and his wife had been escorted out of the Westfield Vancouver mall, where officers said they had been “belligerent.” Witnesses at the mall said the couple was “boisterous” and added they were “scaring customers,” according to police reports.

The Vancouver City Attorney’s Office deliberated for a week and a half before announcing March 30 that it planned to press charges. An initial hearing is scheduled at 8:30 a.m. May 12.

Unlawful carrying of a weapon is a gross misdemeanor, carrying a sentence of up to one year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Kirby pleaded not guilty. His attorney has advised him not to comment.

The state law at issue is RCW 9.41.270, which says: “It shall be unlawful for any person to carry, exhibit, display, or draw any firearm, dagger, sword, knife or other cutting or stabbing instrument, club, or any other weapon apparently capable of producing bodily harm, in a manner, under circumstances, and at a time and place that either manifests an intent to intimidate another or that warrants alarm for the safety of other persons.”

“That is extremely subjective,” said Cliff Nutting, an open-carry advocate. But the debate over whether open-carry should be allowed is black and white, he said.

That’s because it’s divided by reasonable and emotional reactions, according to Nutting.

A reasonable reaction, Nutting said, was the push by Washington gun owners for the right to carry concealed so they wouldn’t have to open carry.

He said individuals who call police because they are “alarmed” at the sight of a gun are reacting emotionally.

He called the Brady Campaign “parasites.”

Nutting said police have twice responded to reports that he possessed a gun.

And both times, a police officer checked his identification and allowed him to continue on with his day.

“Most of the time, I will conceal simply because I don’t have a desire at that time to go through the process that could occur as a result of me carrying and someone calls police,” Nutting said.

Police officers only

Heidi Yewman, however, said her response to guns is thought through. And she believes that police officers pass the open-carry muster, but no one else.

“He’s not drunk, on drugs or angry,” Yewman said. “I can feel safe that he’s a good guy. I don’t know that with someone openly carrying.”

A graduate of Columbine High School in Littleton, Co., who has lived in Vancouver the past 15 years, Yewman in March organized local protests against Starbucks and traveled with a large group to Seattle to deliver a petition with 29,000 signatures to the company’s headquarters.

She returned later last month in a bid to reach out to shareholders, providing them with fliers showing that puppies and bare feet are barred from Starbucks. Guns are not.

“This particular issue frustrates me and really makes me so mad,” Yewman said. “I would go to Starbucks every day. I go there with my kids. I go there to meet my husband. When I found out that Starbucks isn’t willing to protect me in a place I feel like is my living room, I decided to start protesting and get involved.”

Yewman graduated 13 years before the mass shooting in Columbine in which her high school basketball coach, among others, was gunned down. “I don’t feel safe with people with guns in Starbucks next to me,” she said.

Washington is one of 43 states that allow gun owners to open carry. It’s also one of the nearly 40 states that provide concealed permits on what’s called a “shall issue” basis, said retired professor Don Kates.

Kates said that the “shall issue” approach — which says law enforcement officials cannot deny a concealed weapons permit except in specific cases — invalidates arguments by Columbian.com readers that Kirby’s citation reflects an infringement on the Second Amendment.

Kates, who lives just outside the city limits in Battle Ground, is identified on the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation of Washington as a “gun scholar.”

“In 40 states, if you’re a law-abiding citizen, you have a right to a concealed carry permit,” said Kates, who taught at the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco. “If people are allowed to carry concealed, there’s no basis for saying they have a right to carry openly.”

Case similarities

A supervising prosecutor in the City Attorney’s Office, Kevin McClure, pointed to a Washington Court of Appeals decision to uphold a conviction against Randolph Spencer as a case that bears similarities to the one he’s mounting against Kirby. Spencer was cited in 1991 in King County when witnesses reported seeing him walking his dog in a neighborhood with an AK-47 on his shoulder.

He appealed the ruling, arguing the state statute was “overly broad,” “constitutes an effective ban on the right to bear arms in self defense,” and could have a “chilling effect on the constitutional right to bear arms.”

Further, he told the court that “preventing alarm” is an “overly ambiguous objective.”

Division One of the Court of Appeals, located in Seattle, in January 1995 upheld Spencer’s conviction, saying, “We do not find these arguments persuasive.”

An attorney representing Kirby didn’t provide specifics but said he believes previous court rulings support his client’s case. Christopher Dumm previously told The Columbian he has a “strong interest in Second Amendment issues.”

As far as the Kirby case, Dumm said by phone Wednesday: “We go to court next month and we’ll see what happens.”

Bob Albrecht: 360-735-4522 or bob.albrecht@columbian.com.