On August 19 Breitbart News spoke with Gun Owners of America (GOA) executive director Larry Pratt and he described gun free zones as “murder magnets” that must be abolished by hitting their creators where it hurts–“in their bloody pocketbooks.”
GOA has been unflinching in their opposition to gun free zones in schools from the moment Senator Joe Biden (D-Md.) introduced them in 1990. They remain opposed to the current cacophony of “guns allowed” versus “no guns allowed” areas in schools, colleges, and businesses that we see around the country today. This confusing mix presents law-abiding citizens with certain places where self-defense is honored and certain places were law-abiding citizens check their dignity and their ability to defend themselves at the door.
When we asked Pratt to address these things, he said:
Attacks as of late in gun free zones have proven what we’ve been arguing all along. In fact, the gun free zone has been demonstrated to be a murder magnet. All but two of our mass murders have occurred in gun free zones over the last several decades.
The answer to this problem is to get rid of gun free zones. To allow teachers and other adults to carry concealed firearms, so that the dirt bags have the same disadvantage in schools that they do elsewhere where concealed carry is part of what people can do.
We discussed how gun free zones have put our military personnel in the same kind of defenseless position that America’s school children and teachers are now in, and Pratt said:
I’m not sure of the exact details on how it unfolded but we know that in Chattanooga Navy Commander Tim White used his personal weapon to fire at the attacker and get him off stride. The Commander was packing against Navy regulations, against Presidential orders, but it was an unconstitutional order.
And look at the time it took them to announce that they weren’t going to bring charges against Commander White. They should have been thinking about how to honor him. He should have already had an award. After all, that wasn’t workplace violence–that was war.
Pratt again stressed that whether we are talking about schools or military facilities or shopping malls, gun free zones are “murder magnets” that attract “dirt bags” who prey on the defenseless. And he said one of the best solutions is to go into states that allow gun free zones and pass laws making clear that those who create such zones have “strict liability” for any lives lost in them. This approach would center on businesses at first, but would certainly have a ripple effect from that point.
He said:
You’re not going to let me have a gun in there? You’re going to make me pass through electronic security? Then good. Then you be strictly liable for all my expenses and have a cash settlement for my survivors if I get killed because you had me in a gun free zone.
Pratt said this is the way forward. Hit such business owners and other creators of gun free zones in the one place that matters to them most–“their bloody pocketbooks.” A life lost is an expensive matter to compensate.
by Awr Hawkins
