Wednesday, August 09, 2006

The ultimate gun free zone

The idea of a gun free zone has appealed to many big government types for years. The idea that without guns, violence would be reduced to a point that the residents would no longer need fear it. The places labeled as gun free zones have never really been tested as people could ignore the regulation. (Columbine is a gun free zone for example.) So how can you tell if a gun free zone would work? Washington DC is a place where gun ownership is all but outlawed but the availability of guns on the street means it's really not a "gun free" zone. New York City is another example of this. Schools and other institutions are simply to easy to access to create a true "gun free"zone. (Of course, no place is truly "gun free" if the police retain their firearms, but that's another discussion.) People come and go in these areas everyday requiring impractical methods to insure guns don't make it in. Also the boundaries of the zone are not rigidly controlled, so while a gun might not get into the building, it might enter the "zone".

So in order to create a true "gun free zone", you would need to set up an area which had extremely controlled access. No one could just come and go when they wanted as this would hinder the security measures. The area itself would have to be physically secure and monitored to prevent a security breach. Kind of sounds like a prison...

Prisons are the best examples of gun free zones we have in our society and no one wants to live there. Somehow the lack of firearms (and other weapons) behind bars does not stop crime. The weak are still preyed upon by the strong. The indications are that there is more victimization behind bars than outside. The lack of guns and the high concentration of criminals in prisons refutes the arguments that guns are responsible for crime.

So if you want to live in a truly gun free zone, there's probably one near by.

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