By Rob Morse
Few of us act like criminals. That’s a good thing. We’re law-abiding gun owners after all. Even fewer of us think or act like mass murderers. That’s good too, and I’m grateful for your restraint.
Most of us think like honest citizens and that lack of imagination has deadly consequences. Thinking like a choir boy won’t stop mass murderers who want to kill us and our children. I wish I was describing some abstract theory, but unfortunately I’m describing a harsh reality we face everyday. Ignoring evil gets us killed. Consider two points of view and judge for yourself.
One perspective says we should forbid people from bringing firearms into buildings where we gather. That should make all of us safer while we’re there. That line of thinking makes complete sense to most honest people. Without guns around, there are fewer ways that an attacker can hurt innocent victims. That should be obvious to anyone who gives it even a moment’s thought. The more buildings and outdoor areas that are “gun-free,” the safer we’ll all be.
Now reconsider that from a different point of view. When it comes to violence, we’re completely uninterested in limiting the behavior of honest and law abiding citizens. We want to change the behavior of criminals and violent attackers. Ask yourself how a criminal thinks and how he acts.
Laws are for honest people. Barring honest people from being armed in “sensitive places” does nothing to change the behavior of people who break the law. In fact, criminals look for easy victims and a plastic “no guns allowed” sign delivers those defenseless victims on a platter.
A “no guns allowed” sign doesn’t turn criminals away, it attracts them.
Do you really think that thieves and murderers obey our rules and put down their weapons because of a sign on a door? Sadly, too often, the answer is yes.
Yes, I expected criminals to obey our rules. Maybe some of them will.
The proponents of “gun-free” zones say that the plastic signs might help and that they do no harm. That statement depends on us not knowing the truth that brightly brands that claim as a lie.
You already know the truth. Criminals attack the elderly and handicapped precisely because they are easy victims. Mass-murderers attack us in so-called “gun-free” zones 49 out of 50 times because they want easy victims and a high body-count. Put another way, we’re almost 50 times safer from mass-murderers when we are outside of a “gun-free” zone.
You might not know this, but mass murders do. Attackers know that almost one in five attempted mass-murders are stopped by armed citizens where those citizens are allowed to go armed. That’s why killers select “gun-free” zones 96 percent of the time.
When ordinary citizens are allowed to go armed, we are about 99 times safer than if we are in a “gun-free” zone that’s only guarded by a plastic sign on the door. This makes more sense once you remember that about one-out-of-12 citizens go legally armed in public today. One out of a dozen doesn’t stop every crime, but it spreads doubt for every criminal and would be mass murderer.
Most of us already knew this intuitively. It isn’t the plastic signs that defends the courthouse and the statehouse, it is the guards with gun on their belts. Judges and legislators insist on uniformed defenders, but most of us don’t have armed security to protect us at the taxpayers’ expense. Unless you’re a billionaire, a politician, or a celebrity who hires armed guards, it is up to you to protect yourself and our family.
Tens of millions of us do that every day. We go armed at home and in public. Most of us never notice our armed neighbors because concealed is concealed. We tend to forget about our armed neighbors and we don’t appreciate what we can’t see. In contrast, criminals pay very close attention.
Criminals avoid armed victims the way they avoid armed police officers. The bad guys look for places where honest citizens are prevented from arming themselves. Criminals and killers have hunted us at prohibited places like schools and train stations where it’s illegal to go armed.
They hunt for us at bars late at night because we can’t be armed if we go drinking. The plastic “no-guns” sign disarmed the designated driver as well as the evening drinker. Again, those “no-guns” signs help criminals and the mass murderers by sorting out the easy victims.
Those thin plastic “no guns allowed” signs may stop lawsuits, but they don’t stop bullets. The signs protect property owners, but they don’t protect the public.
Take down the signs. It is time we stopped making life easier for the bad guys. You’ll know how to do that once you start thinking like a criminal.
This article originally appeared at Slow Facts and is reprinted here with permission.
