The Cruelty of Gun-Free ZonesTuesday night, President Obama vowed to “help stop more tragedies from visiting innocent Americans in our movie theaters and our shopping malls, or schools like Sandy Hook.”
But before he continues pushing his typical gun-control agenda, he should consider what law enforcement in Europe and the United States advise. It might surprise him.
In November, Interpol’s secretary general, Ron Noble, noted there are two ways to protect people from such mass shootings: “One is to say we want an armed citizenry; you can see the reason for that. Another is to say the enclaves [should be] so secure that in order to get into the soft target you’re going to have to pass through extraordinary security.”
Noble sees a real problem: “How do you protect soft targets? That’s really the challenge. You can’t have armed police forces everywhere.”
“It makes citizens question their views on gun control,” he noted. “You have to ask yourself, ‘Is an armed citizenry more necessary now than it was in the past, with an evolving threat of terrorism?’”
His comments were made right after the terrorist attack at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, where 68 people were killed. Kenya bans both open and concealed carrying of firearms by civilians. Yet, obviously, those bans didn’t stop the terrorists.
The vast majority of mass shootings in the U.S. have been extensively planned beforehand — often many months or even years in advance, allowing the perpetrators to find unprotected targets and obtain weapons. Take Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook Elementary School killer, who spent over two years studying everything about previous mass shootings: the weapons used, the number of people killed, and even how much media coverage each shooting received. Police described the 7-by-4-foot spreadsheet as sickeningly thorough, even likening his careful study to a doctoral dissertation.
James Holmes, the Aurora, Colo., killer, was another careful planner. He started buying items two and a half months in advance. He visited neighboring theaters, and bought his ticket almost two weeks before his attack. To help prepare, he photographed the layout of the theater where he’d commit his heinous crimes.
Ironically, President Obama mentioned movie theaters and malls on Tuesday. Holmes appears to have carefully selected the theater he did: Seven theaters within a 20-minute drive of his apartment were showing the premier of The Dark Knight Returns. He chose the only one posting signs banning concealed guns — not the theater closest to his apartment or the one prominently advertising the largest auditoriums in Colorado.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/370014/cruelty-gun-free-zones-john-r-lott-jr#!
