How Gun-Free Zones Invite Mass Shootings

According to the Chicago Tribune (November 20, 2018): People have been acting for a long time like the United States is the world’s hotbed of mass public shootings. This belief is constantly used to push for more gun control. If we can only get rid of guns in the United States, we will get rid of these mass public shootings and be more like the rest of the world, gun-control supporters preach. But America doesn’t lead the world in mass public shootings. We’re not even close.

Over the course of 18 years, from 1998 to 2015, the Crime Prevention Research Center developed a list that contains 2,354 attacks and at least 4,880 shooters outside the United States and 53 attacks and 57 shooters within this country. By their count, the U.S. makes up 1.49 percent of the murders worldwide, 2.20 percent of the attacks, and less than 1.15 percent of the mass public shooters. All these are much less than America’s 4.6 percent share of the world population.

Of the 97 countries where they identified mass public shootings, the U.S. ranks 64th per capita in its rate of attacks and 65th in fatalities. Major European countries, such as Norway, Finland, France, Switzerland and Russia, all have at least 25 percent higher per capita murder rates from mass public shootings.

While Americans are rightly concerned by the increased frequency and severity of mass public shootings, the rest of the world is experiencing much larger increases in per capita rates of attack. The frequency of foreign mass public shootings since 1998 has grown 291 percent faster than in the U.S.

The media bias on this is overwhelming. Even after President Donald Trump again raised the danger of gun-free zones, the news media still refuse to mention this fact in its reporting of mass shootings.

The attack earlier this month at Borderline Bar & Grill occurred in a gun-free zone. Unlike in 39 states, concealed handgun permit holders in California are banned from carrying permitted concealed handguns into bars. The mass shooting Monday at Chicago’s Mercy Hospital & Medical Center in Bronzeville was at a place where law-abiding citizens were banned from having guns.

Most gunmen are smart enough to know that they can kill more people if they attack places where victims can’t defend themselves. That’s one reason why 98 percent of mass public shootings since 1950 have occurred in places where citizens are banned from having guns.
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Operating in Hostile and Non-Permissive Environments:
A Survival and Resource Guide for Those Who Go in Harm’s Way

 

Military personnel deployed to a combat area, their supporting contractors overseas, government civilian employees overseas, non-government organizations (NGOs), journalists working on international stories, businesses attempting to establish a foothold in developing countries, and individual travelers to remote areas of the world can all find themselves in hostile and non-permissive environments. This guide covers a broad range of subjects that are intended to aid individuals, living and working in dangerous areas, in being safer in their daily lives and in being better able to protect themselves and survive in case of an emergency, disaster, or hostile action.