Gun Free Zones: The Ugly Truth

[sleepyone]

In a free society, people are allowed to do as they wish so long as it hurts nobody else.

But you and I both know, Justin, that in a totally free society people are going to get hurt because there will always be those people who infringe on the rights of others, which is EXACTLY the reason the 2nd Amendment says "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Any law or ordinance preventing that is violating that right IMHO.

That was a nice segway to get back on topic, don't you think?

 

[jerkface11]

sixth st fills with extremely drunk 20 something men who are running on nothing but testosterone and booze.

So you'd make an entire street a gun free zone? Or just streets full of drunken morons?

 

[sleepyone]

JustinJ, show me a study that substantiates your claim that having more guns in areas like Sixth Street results in higher death rates. I don't need to provide you with studies that show Gun Free Zones have extremely high death rates of innocents. Just watch the nightly news. Theories are nice, but real life exposes flawed theories every time.

 

[JustinJ]

So you'd make an entire street a gun free zone? Or just streets full of drunken morons?

No, i'd leave it as it is now. The bars and nightclubs would remain "gun free". I fully believe that if a sober person is walking down any street and minding his own business and then suddenly finds his life being threatened by a group of drunks he has the right to defend himself. However, if the person walking down the street is drunk it is not reasonable to expect he will always exercise the appropriate level of restraint.

JustinJ, show me a study that substantiates your claim that having more guns in areas like Sixth Street results in higher death rates.

There are countless studies showing that intoxicated people are poor decision makers and have lower inhibitions but I'm not playing that game. Can you show a study to support each and every one of your opinions are or some of them derived from simple common sense?

But you and I both know, Justin, that in a totally free society people are going to get hurt because there will always be those people who infringe on the rights of others, which is EXACTLY the reason the 2nd Amendment says "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Any law or ordinance preventing that is violating that right IMHO.

That was a nice segway to get back on topic, don't you think?

Um okay, but what does that have to do with anything i said specifically about the comment you are replying too? Never mind, lets keep it back on topic.

 

[sleepyone]

There would be a designated gun free zone marked on the sidewalk of each block where all the drunk people would be required to stand. Of course, it would be based on the honor system.

 

[c4v3man]

I'm sure that it's already illegal to be drunk while carrying a firearm. Putting up a sign or writing a law making it further illegal is going to accomplish little. What about the bar owner? Should they be unable to defend themselves while operating their business?

Someone who gets drunk and shoots someone is obviously dangerous and needs to be punished severely. Once enough "good friendly drunks" shoot random strangers, perhaps people will reconsider getting recklessly drunk in the first place.

 

[jerkface11]

Not everyone in a bar is drunk. So why ban the sober people from defending themselves.

 

[JustinJ]

Not everyone in a bar is drunk. So why ban the sober people from defending themselves.

Again, in principle i agree with you but i think the reality is quite different. Verify few, if any people in bars on sixth street remain sober, be it by one subtance or another. Many who intend to drink very little or none at all eventually decide, "oh, one won't hurt me, and then they're puking on the sidewalk". Most people do not got out intending to drive home drunk yet the numbers are quite staggering.

I'm sure that it's already illegal to be drunk while carrying a firearm. Putting up a sign or writing a law making it further illegal is going to accomplish little. What about the bar owner? Should they be unable to defend themselves while operating their business?

It is illegal to carry while drunk and is already illegal to carry in a bar. The signs are there to keep the honest, honest. That's the thing about drinking. Most who get blitzed never intended to in the first place. That's the nature of alcohol, it lowers inhibitions.

Someone who gets drunk and shoots someone is obviously dangerous and needs to be punished severely. Once enough "good friendly drunks" shoot random strangers, perhaps people will reconsider getting recklessly drunk in the first place.

Right, like how after enough drunk drivers caused enough crashes and deaths people finally reconsidered and just stopped driving drunk?

 

[jerkface11]

Right, like how after enough drunk drivers caused enough crashes and deaths people finally reconsidered and just stopped driving drunk?

Maybe we shouldn't let people have car keys in bars then.

 

[sleepyone]

Can you show a study to support each and every one of your opinions are or some of them derived from simple common sense?

Stay on point here, Justin. I agree with you that drunks are poor decision makers. I asked you to support your claim that having more guns in areas like Sixth Street results in higher death rates. We know from documented fact that Gun Free Zones are targeted by mass murderers. It is proven that in places where concealed or open carry is legal death rates are lower. Look at Chicago and D.C.

Also, people who have concealed carry permits are less likely than your average person to get rip roaring drunk and shoot up a bar. Generally speaking, the people who would do that are not going to bother with a permit in the first place. Once you get into the "if it only saves one life" argument the other side has already won.

I don't know why we are having this discussion. Places with more restrictive gun laws have higher death and crime rates. Period. Places that allow concealed or open carry have lower crime rates because the bad guys does not know who else may be armed besides him, and most criminals don't target victims who have the ability to fight back. Period.

I will have to continue this later. My 16 year old daughter is singing the National Anthem at our local HS soccer game. Now that is as American as it gets. Well, the National Anthem part; not the soccer game part.

 

[sleepyone]

Amen to that! I will have an angle to present later tonight of a directly personal nature. I am an elementary school teacher. Obviously, our school is a GFZ, yet I am assigned with protecting my students should a shooter be on campus. I'll tell you the brilliant district-wide plan later. Think about what you would do.

 

[c4v3man]

Right, like how after enough drunk drivers caused enough crashes and deaths people finally reconsidered and just stopped driving drunk?

Right. I know people who have stopped drinking after someone close to them got involved in a DUI.

If you get drunk and CHOOSE to lower your inhibitions, then you are still responsible for your actions. Making it illegal to carry while drunk or while in a bar does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to prevent it from occurring. All it does is create victims, such as people who choose not to drink, but still want to go to the local bar for a good burger. They are defenseless, especially against drunk morons who ignore the laws and/or signs.

So tell me, how does a gun free zone (without encorfement, which the vast majority lack and always will) actually make anyone safer?

 

[sleepyone]

OK, here is my dilemma. My elementary school is a large Pre-K through 5 campus with two long wings of classrooms separated by the offices, gyms, cafeteria, library etc. in the middle. EVERY classroom has a large window that can be easily accessed. We have four main hallways with cross hallways and the classrooms are configured in pods with four rooms grouped together. Each door is no more than eight feet apart. You can go from room to room to room to room in seconds. Our district-wide policy for an intruder is to go to lockdown mode, which consists of the following procedures:

Every teacher locks the classroom door, turns off the light and has the kids hide under the desks, tables or behind anything as long as they can't be seen by an intruder(s) through the little vertical rectangular window in the door. We then wait until the all clear signal is given. That's it. There are so many problems with this strategy, but I will just point out a few.

1. Are we to believe that a shooter, or shooters, will be fooled when every door is locked and every light is out. It will not take him very long to discover that each classroom is probably full of cowering kids and a teacher at which point he will just start shooting off the locks and flipping on light switches.

2. Every window is an entry point. The main doors of our school are full length glass like many school doors. They have the automatic lock with the camera but so what. Just go through a window and you can take out at least one classroom before the office is even notified by one of the classrooms in the same pod. Most likely, he could take out an entire pod of classrooms before a LEO got the call. To make matters worse, our school is on the far south side of the county. It takes 15 minutes to get from town to the campus. If the county LEOs are on the north side of the county it could take 30 minutes to arrive.

3. I am a CHL holder, ex-military and very physically fit. I have a real problem with a policy that says I will have to hide in a room with the lights out and twenty kids freaking out and hope that the shooter does not pick my room. I do not carry while I am at school, but let's say that I could access my weapon within two minutes if necessary. However, by that time the body count would likely be very high. Besides, I'm not going to abandon my kids.

I agree with c4v3man who says if you are going to infringe upon my Constitutional right to protect myself, you had better be able to provide me the same level of protection. I have a real problem with a policy that says you are responsible for protecting your kids but we are not going to give you any tools with which to provide that protection. I will give my life for my kids, but it will not be given hiding in a room under a desk with the lights out.

This is the dilemma that Gun Free Zones have created. They are nothing more than killing fields.

 

[sleepyone]

The only weapon I carry concealed at school is my Kershaw; and even this is a violation of current district policy and state law. That certainly is no match for any firearm; semi-automatic or not.

I am eagerly awaiting Justin's defense of this gun free zone policy and would love to hear his strategy for protecting kids from a shooter while armed with only a pocket knife and hiding under a desk in a dark room with 20 terrified children.

 

[sleepyone]

BTW, JohnnyDollar, I have travelled your fair state from the panhandle to Key West and from Siesta Key to Cocoa Beach. I love Florida, but I could always count on two things; getting stuck behind a senior citizen while driving and a good thunderstorm each afternoon around 1:00!

 

[Airbrush Artist]

Lets Say!

LET'SAY- I'am on My school Bus, My Weapons Free Killing Zone School Bus and LET'S SAY-That I disregard that sign and Law ordinance and Carry my Firearm with Me on this particular day along with my Conceal & Carry Card right beside my CDL to Drive My school Bus LET'S SAY- I have all 42 Kids on My Bus LET'S SAY a Muslim Terrorist Hops on My School Bus with a Dagger and a M-16s supplied from a US Stock pile LET'S SAY Before he can Kill one of My Innocent Students I blow His brains back out the bus door LET'S SAY- I'm arrested and Charged and end up in Prison and My Freedom of my Life ends for 20-30 years taking from Me My Wife ,Sons,5 grandchildren and so many friends and Blessings I've worked for All My life.LET'S SAY If after it happen I could back up the Time and change it all.WOULD I ? Like Most American Men and Women would .I'd say NO..I wonder How many of Our elite Government officals especially Our President and Vice-President that are trying to take The Rights of Our Constitution would say NO...

 

[JustinJ]

Stay on point here, Justin. I agree with you that drunks are poor decision makers. I asked you to support your claim that having more guns in areas like Sixth Street results in higher death rates. We know from documented fact that Gun Free Zones are targeted by mass murderers. It is proven that in places where concealed or open carry is legal death rates are lower. Look at Chicago and D.C.

Uh yeah, my point was on topic. Calling for a study that couldn't practically be performed as an attempt to prove your position is not sound debate. Do you expect the state of TX to suspend it's law regarding concealed carry in bars just to see what will happen? Not likely. But since you claim to have "documented" evidence that Gun Free Zones are targeted by mass murders please cite your study. More specifically cite a study that bars in states in which concealed carry is prohibited are targeted by mass shooters.

I don't know why we are having this discussion. Places with more restrictive gun laws have higher death and crime rates. Period. Places that allow concealed or open carry have lower crime rates because the bad guys does not know who else may be armed besides him, and most criminals don't target victims who have the ability to fight back. Period.

I hate to burst your bubble but the above comments are completley false. Some places with stricter gun laws have high death and crime rates and some places with less restrictive have fewer. Houston, where concealed carry is allowed, has a much higher crime rate than many cities where it isn't allowed. Why? Because the factors that contribute to crime rates are extremely complex. If the threat of being shot deterred crime please explain how it is that murder rates are so high among gang members? Crimes are largely committed by young men with delusions of invisibility so no, guns are not a significant detterent against crime. Sorry, I believe in gun rights but i won't delude myself against reality to justify my position.

Right. I know people who have stopped drinking after someone close to them got involved in a DUI.

If you get drunk and CHOOSE to lower your inhibitions, then you are still responsible for your actions. Making it illegal to carry while drunk or while in a bar does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to prevent it from occurring. All it does is create victims, such as people who choose not to drink, but still want to go to the local bar for a good burger. They are defenseless, especially against drunk morons who ignore the laws and/or signs.

So tell me, how does a gun free zone (without encorfement, which the vast majority lack and always will) actually make anyone safer?

Despite you knowing people who have stopped drinking and driving it still continues to be extremely common. This is why such stiff penalties and new enforcement strategies are constantly being enforced. The threat of being caught with a concealed weapon in a bar is absolutely a deterent against carrying there. But i've already stated the problem with allowing concealed carry in bars and i'm not going to keep repeating myself.

I am eagerly awaiting Justin's defense of this gun free zone policy and would love to hear his strategy for protecting kids from a shooter while armed with only a pocket knife and hiding under a desk in a dark room with 20 terrified children.

Wow, this is irritating. It's like some just live in some bubble in which they filter out everything that isn't convenient to their argument. I haven't said i believe in making guns school free zones. In fact i've spoken quite clearly on the subject. Sorry, i'm not going to retype everything just for you.

edit: Maybe i just need to speak in a simpler manner. If guns are allowed in schools certain bad things could happen. If guns are in schools they might also stop some bad things from happening. I think it better they be in schools but only if people with the guns are shown how to be safe. Get it?

Now I see why there are 3 thousand plus posts. Continual responses, subject of no consequence, and no matter how far off the RKBA track. Bar Zones! You gotta laugh. It relieves tensions. Even from Texans. We do need comic relief in these tense 7 limit times! It is being provided.

\

Johnydollar, you make this thread and accuse my posts as being of no consequence? You can't formulate an intelligent rebuttal so instead make a poor attempt to patronize but you're the one laughing? They say ignorance is bliss, i guess.

 

[sleepyone]

I'm not calling for new studies or citing existing studies. That is what someone steeped in academia loves to do. Just look at the news stories over the past 20 years. public schools, colleges, malls, post offices, movie theaters etc... How many of these places were gun free zones? All of them.

Murder rates among gang members are higher for obvious reasons. Gangs are violent and they enforce their rules and conduct their illegal businesses violently.

You do believe in gun rights; on a limited basis. The 2nd amendment does not have limits. It's pretty straight forward.

I am sorry to say this, but the tone of your threads really paints you as an elitist who thinks we need to be protected from ourselves instead of other people, and it is the government's job to provide that protection even though we have seen time and time again what happens when our right to protect ourselves and our loved ones is taken away and we are left to depend on our local law enforcement or some other agency for protection. It would not surprise me if you were a professor at UT. The tone of your threads smacks of an air of superiority over the rest of poor, uneducated dopes. I encountered a lot of that when I was in graduate school.

It is our God-given right to keep and bear arms. The government can't take away something that did not belong to it in the first place. It is my job to protect myself and my family. Any honest LEO will tell you not to depend on him for protection. They usually arrive in time to do a body count. As they say, "When seconds count, the police are only minutes away."

Justin, it is obvious you are a very intelligent and educated person, but your RKBA position is not sound, and in my opinion, contradicts itself. You are making it a lot more complicated than our Founding Fathers intended, and they spoke from firsthand knowledge and experience; not studies, statistics or theories.

 

[happygeek]

Do you expect the state of TX to suspend it's law regarding concealed carry in bars just to see what will happen?

Apparently 4 states do allow it (TN, AZ, GA, VA). 18 other states allow it in restaurants that serve alcohol, WA being one of those (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/us/04guns.html?_r=0).

 

[Sam1911]

PA as well has no prohibition against carrying in a bar or, indeed, of having a few drinks while carrying.

No blood in the streets. After ?? years of Pennsylvanians being uninhibited in that way, I feel perfectly confident in saying that this functions as a very worthwhile "case study."

Apparently all the worries about the terrible and dangerous things folks will do when allowed to carry -- and even to DRINK while carrying -- are COMPLETELY unfounded.

How 'bout that?

Maybe the difference is that PA doesn't have any college towns...or college bars...or groups of drunk young men in bars...? Huh, so that's not it. So, again, while neither Justin's view nor mine can provide a controlled study to prove their point, I can provide a completely unbounded one -- of a whole state full of bars and college bars and drunk young guys -- that's been running for DECADES now (truly longer than that...) and has NOT proved Justin's point or even made the barest suggestion that it MIGHT be true.

(Or that whatever few random unpleasant events which might happen occasionally in bars, whether carry there is legal or not, represent a compelling societal interest in making concealed carry there specifically against the law.)

...

Now, I'll chime in on another point and that is that I really don't believe, either, that concealed carry is a great deterrent to violent crime (or suppressant for violent crime rates in an area, more accurately). It just doesn't seem that criminals (or anyone else) seem to put much thought into the relatively few people who might lawfully be carrying on a given day. Heinlein's old saw about "and armed society..." is a neat idea, but no place in the US is so heavily and visibly armed as to really be a good example of that. (And some places in the world that are VERY heavy/visibly armed don't seem to support the hypothesis, either...)

Concealed carry is a fantastic way to deter, or actually STOP, violent crime against YOU, which is the real point. Violent crime in general, though doesn't seem to be much affected. Way too many other factors contribute to whether a place is more or less agreeable to the operations of criminal actors.

 

[Geno]

I won't make a long post here, because I already have done so in other threads on this subject here at THR. As many of you know, I am a recently retired graduate professor, and before that served a few years as a middle school & high school principal, as well K-12 Director of School Improvement & Professional Development. My total career in professional education spans back to about 1982, pre-zero tolerance.

Zero Tolerance was for fact, adopted for the sole purpose of legitimately being able to expel students who had a 504, which mandated accommodations for their handicapping condition. I am among the few principals who actually did not fear expelling a special education student when it was merited, even pre-Zero Tolerance. Then again, I also am the principal who suspended the MEA Union's Vice-president for a week, and the student who I suspended for the greatest number of days (93 days suspended out of 183 days of classes) was a School Board members's son. I did not need Zero Tolerance; I was born with a spine. Yes, I mean that seriously; Zero Tolerance was for the cowardly, and uninformed administrators.

In terms of the Gun Free Zones, and the Michigan State Police's position (as usual) that blood will run down the school's halls, I question what has changed since 1989-1990, when I was the principal of Hillman High School, when the State Police tried to force me to carry concealed, and to carry my rifles and shotguns to my office, direct to the gun range after school, and to let White Boy Rick see me shooting. Investigate White Boy Rick and Maserati Rick if you are interested in the story.

As a related side note, the greatest number of people killed ever in a school in the United States did not involve a handgun; it involved dynamite. A disgruntled School Board member in (I think) Holt Michigan bombed the school, killing dozens.

If you search my name here, you will find complete explanations of what Zero Tolerance laws, and you will see that in desired intent of the law has been utterly perverted. Zero Tolerance has become Zero Thinking, Zero Spine and makes me so sick I could vomit! Before some of you pontificate too much without knowing these laws, and without having worked with these laws. Stop and ask some questions from those of us who have. As is the case with many laws, Zero Tolerance is well-intentioned, and poorly executed. As to Gun Free Zones, let's just hold hands now, boys, and sing Kumbaya.

Yeah, this is a short post. Feel free to search what I have posted previously. If in those posts, you do not find your desired answer, follow-up here.

Respectfully submitted,

Prof. E.R. Shaw (AKA Geno)

 

[Pilot]

Gun free zones assume that criminals and the mentally ill that become criminals will follow rules, laws, regulations, etc. This belief, and premise is flawed, irrational, and blatantly wrong. Politicians, and bureaucrats know this, and even often admit that new laws won't helps stop shootings like Newtown.

While I may not be a mind reader, in observing anti (legal) gun politicians and individuals for 40 years I have come to the conclusion that they all have an unreasonable and irrational belief in government creating an all powerful utopia where they are mostly in control as they are smarter, wiser, and better intended than most others. The gun free zone, and more laws like assault weapons bans and magazine capacity limits and bans are a manifestation of this flawed belief.

 

[beatledog7]

Can I have a turn?

Regarding the fact that there are those who wish to have gun free schools, and those who think not: we could consider the issue from an equal protection perspective.

If you want public schools to be GFZs, fine. Send your children to a GF school. But since that GF school is tax payer funded, I want an equal school that's not GF and also tax payer funded. Same with the post office and any other publicly funded gun-free zone. I want an equal guns-allowed zone.

Oh, some will say, we tried segregation and it failed. I agree, and it should fail. But therein lies the rub. Public schools are all about supporting and encouraging diversity of race, socioeconomics, religion (ok, not religion), gender, sexual orientation...everything but political thought, especially RKBA. Like it or not, the debate about citizens' RKBA IS political. As long as politicians are controlling who has RKBA and who doesn't, and in what way, you can't discuss it without the politics.

The jury is not out on whether GFZs that don't include a means to actually enforce the idea are "shoot-at-will" zones for killers. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can see, if one opens his eyes, that these are open invitations to mass killers, places where they know that they can blast away unchallenged for several minutes. I cannot imagine a more ridiculous solution than that for curtailing what the antis like to call "gun violence."

Then again, as others point out, it's not really about guns, after all.

 

[beatledog7]

Geno, thanks for your post #79.

I agree with your views on zero tolerance. All it does is shift accountability from the local, on-the-scene authority to a central bureaucrat--a bureaucrat who has already been declared to exist free of real accountability.

The result? In the case of a school, teachers and principals' hands are tied; they are simply not allowed to make rational decisions, and they know that if they do, they'll be unemployed and unemployable. They apply the zero tolerance rules, every time, without question.

When someone with an independent mind challenges a teacher or pincipal's actions, they can hide behind zero tolerance. When the thinking person escalates his question to the bureaucrat, the bureaucrat can hide behind the disembodied policy.

End game--Nobody's accountable. And that's just how they want it.

 

[Geno]

beatlegog7:

The problem is that there is local authority, plenty of it. But the administrators are either too uninformed, or too weak to follow what the law actually is intended to do. Look up my previous posts about Zero Tolerance's 4 Criteria for enforcement: 1) actual weapon, 2) brought intentionally, with 3) malicious intent toward people or property and 4) not a manifestation of the child's handicap.

For example, a photograph of a Glock, is not a Glock, and does not make a student eligible for expulsion. But it has happened. That a student forgot to leave her employment "box cutter" at home does not make her eligible for Zero Tolerance expulsion, but it has happened. That a mother packed a steak knife for her elementary child's home cooked steak lunch, does not make him a gang-banger, and automatically eligible for expulsion. But is has happened.

Then, I don't think society ever intended for spineless and brainless idiots to become high school administrators, but has happened all across America. And who pays the price?! Our innocent children pay the price. There's a combination of misinformation, and administrators (for that matter School Board members) who are too weak to defend innocent children. It's easier to bury one's head in the sand (or in some other malodorous orifice) and claim, "My hands are tied!" Bovine feces!

Never ask an honest, properly educated and experienced administrator what s/he opines. S/He'll tell ya! As an FYI, if any of you, or yours EVER run into bovine feces, PM me. I'll help turn up the heat, big time! Unfortunate for me, I'm smart enough to know the educational laws, and not quit smart enough to keep my nose out, or big mouth shut.

Geno