Boycott AutoZone
By Eric Peters
For The Spectator
If they won’t respect our rights, maybe they’ll pay more
attention to our dollars. Or rather, the lack thereof —
when we cease doing business with companies that don’t respect our
rights.
For instance, the auto parts retail giant AutoZone. The company
recently fired one of its employees — a fellow named Devin McLean
who worked at an AutoZone in York County, Virginia — for using his
lawfully possessed handgun to thwart a robbery (and very possibly,
thwart the murder of himself and his manager).
According to McLean, a thug burst into the store and “pulled a
gun from his waistband and demanded me and my manager go back into
the office.” While the gunman was distracted, McLean managed to
slip out to the parking lot, where he retrieved his Glock 40
handgun from his truck. The 23-year-old Air Force veteran ran back
into the store and confronted the armed thug, ordering him to
freeze and drop his weapon. The gunman took off instead - without
either money or lives lost.
But McLean has lost his job.
Apparently, AutoZone has a “zero tolerance” policy for employees
having weapons inside the store. McLean was fired because he
violated this policy — even though he may have saved his life and
the life of his manager. (York County police say the thug McLean
chased off is suspected in at least 30 robberies. ) Instead, McLean
should have been a good Clover
— and done as told by an armed thug, supinely submitting and
trusting to the thug’s humanity that he wouldn’t “pop a cap in his
ass” to avoid any hassles with witnesses.
Or just for the sheer sick hell of it.
AutoZone — like Virginia Tech and other bastions of Cloverdom
— has decreed that guns are bad and so has denied
good people the right to possess them. The problem is
bad people still have guns. Only now the good people are
at the mercy of the bad ones.
AutoZone requires that its employees — and its
customers — prostrate themselves before armed thugs. By
having such a policy, AutoZone has done the equivalent of ringing
the dinner bell for violent criminals. Come on down! You’re
assured of defenseless victims at our place.
York County Sheriff JD Diggs agrees, stating: “The company has
now sent a message to every would-be robber out there — ‘Hey we’re
open for business and unarmed. Come on in and take our money.” And,
quite possibly — the lives of innocent people rendered helpless by
AutoZone.
Because when seconds count, the cops are only minutes
away.
Of course, AutoZone has every right to set its terms and
conditions. But customers have every right to set theirs,
too. If AutoZone puts out the welcome mat for armed criminals, then
potential victims ought to take their business
elsewhere.
McLean, who was fired just before Thanksgiving, is reportedly
about to become a father for the first time. He told news outlets
he was thinking of his unborn child — that he might not live to
see his unborn child — when he saw the thug pull his weapon:
“We’re having a little boy… I remember when the guy came in with
that gun. My initial thought was, ‘I want to make it home to my
family. I want to have the opportunity to meet my son and for my
son to meet his dad’ … And for someone to come in and shove a gun
in your face?”
McLean did what any man would do. And more
than that. He not only protected himself, he took the
heroic (a much over-used appellation but absolutely
accurate here) decision to protect others as well. “Never leave a
man behind,” he said. “I’m not going to leave my brother in a room
with a guy with a gun — that’s threatening his life.”
This is the kind of man AutoZone fired.
What sort of men are we if we continue to patronize
AutoZone?
Indeed, any business that has a “zero tolerance” policy of
respecting its customers’ (and its employees’) rights. And there is
no right more elemental — more necessary to all the others — than
the right to defend one’s life against those who would deprive one
of it. Or threaten to. It is not up to us to divine the
motives of thugs. Maybe he is only interested in the money. How are
we to know? And more, what sort of topsy-turvy moral imbecility is
it that gives armed thugs who point deadly weapons at innocent
people the benefit of any doubt?
Devin McLean did the right thing.
And now, so should we.
Boycott AutoZone (see here) until AutoZone
publicly repudiates its “zero tolerance” policy — and does right
by Devin McLean. Take your business to NAPA or O’Reilly Auto Parts.
Pep Boys. Anywhere.
Except “the zone.”
Similarly, the reverse: Patronize those establishments that
do respect your rights. For example, Starbucks. I like
their coffee. But I really like that they “get it” when it
comes to guns. That good people with guns are not the problem.
And that taking guns away from good people
is.
