In the Missoulian: Gun-free zones attract attackers
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Around midmorning on Thursday, parents across Montana started receiving texts from their children that schools were in lockdown. Schools quickly confiscated students’ phones, and parents panicked as they couldn’t find out anything more about what was happening.
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Schools statewide received threats of a suicidal person with a gun. Billings, Bozeman, Butte, Great Falls, and Kalispell all received threats.
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Fortunately, there was no such gunman. The threatening phone calls originated from a foreign country, with schools receiving the same message. But the incident raises the question of what Montanans can do to keep schools safe.
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Many schools in Montana have armed School Resource Officers, but these uniformed, easily identifiable individuals find themselves at a serious disadvantage in an attack.
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“A deputy in uniform has a difficult job in stopping these attacks,” noted Sheriff Kurt Hoffman in Sarasota County, Florida. “These terrorists have strategic advantages in determining the time and place of attacks. They can wait for a deputy to leave the area or pick an undefended location. Even when police or deputies are in the right place at the right time, those in uniform who can be readily identified as guards may as well be holding up neon signs saying, ‘Shoot me first.’ My deputies know that we cannot be everywhere.”
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There’s a good reason air marshals on planes don’t wear uniforms.
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If you have an armed officer in a school, don’t make him readily identifiable. Give him a staff position in the school so it won’t be obvious that he is the one person with a gun.
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But designated officers shouldn’t be the only people who can protect students. A few Montana school districts already allow teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns. Nineteen other states have the same policies. In Utah and New Hampshire, any teacher with a concealed handgun permit can carry. In other states, school boards and superintendents decide on the policies.
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In the thousands of schools where teachers are permitted to carry, no one has been wounded or killed in an attack during school hours. Only at schools where guns are banned have people been wounded or killed in school shootings.
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Despite concerns about students getting a hold of weapons or armed teachers losing their tempers, these scenarios have never actually materialized.
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Time after time, mass public shooters avoid places where people have guns. The attacker in last year’s Covenant School shooting even made this explicit in her manifesto. “There was another location that was mentioned, but because of a threat assessment by the suspect of too much security, they decided not to,” said Nashville Police Chief John Drake.
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Unfortunately, no one at the Covenant School had a gun to fight back with.
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By identifying and targeting gun-free zones, attackers can ensure they will be the only armed people present. The perpetrator of the 2022 supermarket shooting in Buffalo, New York, wrote in his manifesto: “Areas where CCW permits are outlawed or prohibited may be good areas of attack.”
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Unfortunately, national media outlets refuse to report such explicit statements by attackers. Nor do they report that 94% of mass public shootings occur in places where civilians are banned from having guns.
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Gun-free zones attract attackers. The penalties for violating gun-free zones are severe for law-abiding citizens, but the threat of a few years in prison means nothing for someone facing mass murder charges. The law just ensures only the murderer will have a gun.
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It’s no wonder that surveys show that criminologists and economists strongly support abolishing gun-free zones in places such as schools.
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Instead of using signs declaring that schools are gun-free zones, let’s put up signs warning attackers that select teachers have concealed handguns and are prepared to protect students.
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John R. Lott, Jr., “Gun-free zones attract attackers,” The Missoulian, December 6, 2024.
