Sunday Poll: Feel Safer or Less Safe Now That Some Stores Don’t Want Open Carry?

Recently some retail stores have changed their policies regarding customers carrying weapons.

Supermarket and pharmacy chains across the U.S. have begun asking customers to not openly carry firearms in their stores, including in states where open carry is legal. It’s a trend that appears to have been sparked by Walmart, whose CEO Doug McMillon announced the decision on Tuesday following a string of mass shootings around the country — including the Aug. 3 shootingin which 22 were killed at a Walmart store in El Paso, Tex.

McMillon announced on Tuesday that Walmart would stop selling handguns and military-style rifles. In the same statement, he requested that customers no longer openly carry firearms into Walmart stores. Several other chains have followed suit. As of Friday, Kroger, CVS, Walgreens and Wegmans had all issued similar statements of their own. (Time)

Local grocery chain Schnucks had allowed open carry, but changed after recent events.

Schnucks will continue to allow concealed carry where permitted. Authorized law enforcement personnel will still be allowed to carry a firearm openly. (Fox2)

This is the subject of today’s poll:

This poll will close at 8pm tonight.

— Steve Patterson

Sunday Poll: Should The U.S. Government Release a Redacted Name from 9/11 Report?

Wednesday is the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

From July:

The House on Friday approved legislation to replenish a depleted federal fund to compensate emergency workers and others who became ill as a result of their work in the ruins of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, extending it for the lifetime of those who were at Sept. 11’s ground zero.

The bill, passed by a lopsided bipartisan 402-12 vote, would authorize $10.2 billion for the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. It comes in the face of a large uptick in medical claims from people who worked on “the pile,” as the steaming heap of steel rubble was often called by those who labored there in the months after the attack in 2001. Many of them have since become gravely sick with cancer and other ailments. (New York Times)

It later passed the Senate 97-2. Not everything is covered, this month a new study was published:

The study points out that the cardiovascular care is not currently covered by the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, meaning 9/11 firefighters receive no compensation for cardiovascular diseases from the fund.

The cardiovascular risks that appear to be linked to Ground Zero exposure include heart attack, stroke, unstable angina, coronary artery surgery and angioplasty. (NBC News)

Less discussed is an ongoing victims lawsuit:

The Justice Department is wrestling with whether to disclose a name sought by the plaintiffs in a long-running lawsuit that seeks to link the government of Saudi Arabia to the 9/11 attacks.

Attorney General William Barr faced a Friday deadline for deciding whether to release the name or to invoke a rarely used state secrets privilege and refuse to divulge the information. But Justice Department officials decided they needed more time, submitting a request to a federal court in New York for an extension until next Thursday. A judge granted the request.  (NBC News)

Today’s poll is about the question of releasing a previously redacted name.

Today’s poll will close at 8am tonight.

— Steve Patterson

Sunday Poll: Are Police Body Cameras Worth The Cost?

St. Louis City & County are both moving closer to equipping police officers with body cameras.

He [Board President Lewis Reed] estimated that the cost to the city would be a little more than $1 million per year, covering cameras for the department’s 1,100 officers, plus the necessary data storage and maintenance. Reed said he got his cost estimates from St. Louis County’s police body camera vendor, Utility Associates, Inc.

St. Louis County police officials announced earlier this month that 700 officers will be outfitted with body cameras by April. The $5 million purchase is being paid for by Proposition P, a tax hike approved by voters in 2017. The chest-mounted cameras secured inside the officers’ uniforms  automatically activate when gunshots are detected, when officers start running or when they draw their guns. (Post-Dispatch)

Today’s poll is about the costs associated with police body cameras.

This poll will automatically close at 8pm tonight.

— Steve Patterson

Sunday Poll: The 2nd Amendment

This year has been violent:

When gun violence erupts in America, the local mayor is often the first to comfort families and try to heal their community. So far this year, there have been more than 35,000 incidents of gun violence in America — 261 of which are considered mass shootings — blamed for more than 9,200 deaths.

CBS News national correspondent Adriana Diaz spoke to four mayors, one of whom had to respond to a massacre less than two weeks ago. Nan Whaley of Dayton, Ohio, Bobby Dyer of Virginia Beach, Virginia, and Christine Hunschofsky of Parkland, Florida have all had to help their cities heal after a mass shooting. Washington, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser addresses gun violence on a continual basis. Together, they’re part of a growing bipartisan chorus of local politicians pushing Congress to take action on guns. (CBS News)

St. Louis hasn’t been immune:

When classes resumed this week at public schools in St. Louis, some desks were noticeably empty as grief counselors greeted students returning from one of the deadliest summers for childrenin the city’s history.

Xavier Usanga, a 7-year-old student at Clay Elementary School, was killed by a stray bullet while playing near his home Monday, a day before he was to begin the second grade, his family said.

The boy’s death marked the seventh child under the age of 17 killed by gun violence in St. Louis this year, police said. All but two of the victims were slain since school let out in June, and police have expressed frustration about the unsolved killings. (ABC News)

Inevitably the 2nd Amendment comes up whenever guns, and gun regulations, are discussed. So it is the subject of today’s non-scientific poll:

Today’s poll will close at 8pm tonight. Wednesday I’ll have the results and my thoughts.

– Steve Patterson

Sunday Poll: Where Do You Get Your Food?

It was ten years ago today that Schucks Markets opened their smaller urban format store, called Culinaria, in downtown St  Louis.

From August 11, 2009:

Culinaria – A Schnucks Market opened this morning at 315 North 9th Street. The store features a 21,000-square-foot main floor and a 6,000-square-foot mezzanine.  (Riverfront Times)

This was much smaller than their newer stores, from May 2018:

A Schnucks spokesman said the chain’s stores average over 60,000 square feet, but their size varies according to location, age and the customer base — ranging from the Culinaria location to stores exceeding 130,000 square feet. “We have several stores that are ‘smaller’ formats, some because of space limitations such as Culinaria (an urban format with limited space) and others because they were built many years ago when the typical supermarket was much smaller,” he said. (Supermarket News)

Culinaria has changed a lot over the last decade, primarily the product mix is much better than it was when it first opened. For a while I’ve been able to buy various King Arthur flours, recently they added Chinese hot mustard.

However, today’s non-scientific poll isn’t directly about Culinaria…at least not directly. Today’s poll is about where your food, primarily groceries, come from. Whether you go to a particular store, or have groceries delivered from there, it counts the same.  This is more about the types of stores where you shop, the answers are randomized.

Today’s poll closes at 8pm tonight.

— Steve Patterson