Why Anti Gun-Free Zone Arguments Are Just Plain Stupid

Bobbie R Hollowell


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The Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church shooting is just another in a long string of mass murders committed by individuals at the most extreme end of right-wing conservatism. While much of the debate since the tragedy has been over whether the attack should be labeled as terrorism or a hate crime, it has also again brought the debate over gun-free zones back into the limelight.

Some feel that gun-free zones create a prime spot for murder, and in reality, it’s time someone finally shut that ignorant argument down.

Are Gun-Free Zones Dangerous?

It doesn’t take long, after a national tragedy, for at least one conservative to say something insanely stupid. This time, the moment came to us courtesy of Charles L. Cotton, a board member with the National Rifle Association (NRA). On a website devoted to “gun rights,” Cotton said this of State Rep. Clementa Pinckney, the preacher killed during the church shooting:

“He voted against concealed-carry. Eight of his church members who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church are dead.”

Even from those who constantly engage in a “blame the victim” mentality, this was a bit much. It wasn’t the shooter’s fault that nine people were dead — it was the preacher’s fault. A conservative talk-radio host, Bryan Fischer, also took this line of reasoning, although he didn’t blame Pinckney directly.


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“Misguided bans on guns in houses of worship turned this black church in SC into a shooting gallery. Nobody could shoot back.”

The Tweet, for those who might want to provide this guy their own opinion:

These reactions from conservatives aren’t too surprising. Every time a shooting happens in a school, a church or anywhere else where guns are banned, they want to blame “gun-free zone” rules on the tragedy. Of course, anyone with a shred of common sense knows this argument is flawed, ill-conceived and dangerously stupid.

How Many Shootings Happen in Gun-Free Zones?

There’s only one word that can properly describe the idea that gun-free zones are what cause gun-related deaths: stupidity. It seems that competing researchers from Everytown and the Crime Prevention Research Center (actually a pro-gun conservative group) have come to different conclusions on just how many mass shootings take place in and out of gun-free zones.

What they don’t tend to look at, however, is all shootings. After all, the F.B.I. reported 486 deaths in mass shootings between 2000 and 2013. Even if we attribute all of these shootings to gun-free zones, that still leaves an insane amount of gun-related deaths. Just look at the numbers.

  • One-third of these deaths are homicides instead of suicides (~10,000 gun-related homicides per year).
  • This means, between 2000 and 2013, the years the F.B.I. counted mass shootings, there were 130,000 gun-related homicides.
  • If we subtract the 486 mass shooting deaths the F.B.I. reported, we’re still left with 129,514 violent gun-related deaths.

Obviously, there’s no telling how many of these nearly 130,000 deaths occurred in gun-free zones, but let’s just use a bit of common sense. Let’s name off some gun-free zones: churches, schools, some workplaces, movie theaters and that’s all that rattles off the top of our heads.

When these shootings happen, we hear about them. Because the gun lobby makes sure we do. But just think about all the shootings the NRA doesn’t bring up. Shootings happen in homes. Shootings happen on the streets. These places are not gun-free zones, yet people are still killed in them. Go Google your city’s name along with “shooting” and see if the latest happened in a gun-free zone.

Heck, research has found that less than 2 percent of student homicides take place in their gun-free schools. Children have a much higher risk of being killed at home or in non-gun-free zones. As Aljazeera America put it:

“Despite the significant hours children log at school and despite a rise in active shooter situations in and outside schools, children are more likely to be shot at a friend or relative’s house or in a parking lot or garage or shopping mall than at their school.”

Isn’t it funny that the only gun-free zone you hear in that list is “shopping mall”? In reality, these gun-free school zones are one of the safest places for children to be. The National Association of School Safety and Law Enforcement Officials’ president and director of public safety, Larry Johnson, had this to say:

“Schools are safe. I think people are forgetting the fact that schools are sometimes safer than the homes.”

Facts are Facts

So no, gun-free zones aren’t causing people to get killed. Heck, if you look at entire states, those with the most lax gun laws also have the highest rates of gun-related deaths.

Oh, and the instances where mass shootings do take place in gun-free zones? In most cases, they would have taken place regardless of gun rules. When looking at 62 mass shootings, for instance, Mother Jones found that mass shooters had specific reasons for picking their targets — and it had nothing to do with them being gun-free zones.

Around a third of the mass shootings studied happened at workplaces, and most of these instances involved shooters who were angry at their co-workers or employers. When looking at 12 school shootings in their data set, they found that the shooters had connections to the school in all but one case.

These crazed shooters aren’t choosing gun-free zones because they’re easy — they’re choosing them because they have perceived grievances with those inside or they want to prove a point. It’s the same reason Dylann Roof chose Emanuel AME Church: not because they wouldn’t be armed… but because he wanted to make a point by attempting to destroy an African-American heritage site.

Oh, and don’t think that having an armed “good guy” with a gun is going to help anything. As Mother Jones put it:

“Veteran FBI, ATF, and police officials say that an armed citizen opening fire against an attacker in a panic-stricken movie theater or shopping mall is very likely to make matters worse.”

They would go on to mention how armed citizens tried to save the day in Washington and Texas in 2005, only to end up “gravely wounded and killed.” In the mass shooting that took place in Tucson in 2011, a “good guy with a gun” nearly killed an actual hero at the site who helped take down the gunman — without using a gun.

The simple fact is that untrained “good guys” with guns usually only make things worse, and the idea that most shootings happen in gun-free zones isn’t only illogical, it’s downright ignorant.

Oh, and by the way, their hero Chris Kyle was killed in a very non-gun-free gun range. And he was about as trained as you can get. Just saying.

Feature image courtesy WikiCommons.

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