The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) is launching a campaign designed to call attention to the fact that gun-free zones are a “maniac’s shooting gallery.”
SAF points to a Crime Prevention Research Center study showing 97.8 percent of mass public shootings between 1950 and May 2018 occurred in gun-free zones.
Mass public shootings of recent memory–Sandy Hook Elementary School (December 14, 2012), San Bernardino County Building (December 2, 2015), Orlando Pulse (June 12, 2016), Parkland High School (February 14, 2018), Tree of Life Synagogue (February 14, 2018), and Virginia Beach (May 31, 2019)–all occurred in gun-free zones.
The danger of gun-free zones prompted SAF founder Alan Gottlieb to say, “You’re a sitting duck in a gun-free zone.”
He added:
The evidence shows that gun-free zones are not the answer. Indeed, they provide an added danger because they prevent legally armed citizens from defending themselves and others, while creating the mere illusion of safety. For more than two decades, the U.S. has perpetuated a false sense of security with gun-free zones. It’s time to end this dangerous folly. Nobody wants to be a sitting duck in a maniac’s shooting gallery.
The SAF campaign against gun-free zones also looks at international statistics to make the case.
For instance, they note that whereas 97.8 percent of U.S. mass shootings from 1950 to May 2018 were in gun-free zones “every mass public shooting in history…[in Europe] has occurred in a gun-free zone.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.