Omaha Mall was a "Gun-Free Zone"

Unfortunately, I caught some of the TV news coverage of the mall shooting in Omaha. Some local nut-bag shot 8 people at a shopping mall with an AK-47, (which, along with the Uzi, are the only guns that liberal anti-gunners know by name) then ate a bullet himself.

On the cable news network that I was watching, they were interviewing their on-staff “security expert,” asking him how public shootings like these can be avoided. He pointed to the example of Israel. Over there, Palestinian terrorists had invented a new terror tactic of going to public places, such as markets, and lighting up the crowd with automatic weapons. The Israelis have managed to all but stop these public shootings. He rattled off a list of security measures, everything from metal detectors to more cops, that the Israelis had used to combat these shootings.

Glaringly absent from the expert’s list was one of the most cost-effective and unobtrusive security measures that the Israelis had implemented: issuing concealed gun permits to its citizens. Since cops and soldiers can’t be everywhere, the Israeli government decided it was best to allow the people to defend themselves. After a few terrorists died of citizen-induced lead poisoning, the rest figured out that innocent bystanders were no longer just defenseless victims. The shootings soon abated. (Unfortunately for the Israelis, the terrorists switched to suicide bombings instead.)

Here in America, a study by crime researchers Professor John Lott and Bill Landes revealed similar circumstances. Analyzing all "multiple-victim public shootings" (two or more victims) from 1977 to 1999, they found that when states passed right-to-carry laws (which automatically grant concealed weapons permits to citizens meeting certain requirements), these attacks fell by 60 percent. Deaths and injuries from these attacks fell by 78 percent.

While all but a few states now issue concealed weapons permits to citizens, most multiple-victim public shootings now occur in places where these permit-holders are forbidden to carry their weapons. This prohibition on carrying can either be by law, such as in schools (like Virginia Tech and Columbine) or at the behest of property owners (such as at Omaha’s Westroads Mall and Utah’s Trolley Square Mall, both of which posted signs banning guns on their premises). Either way, “Gun-Free Zones” are nothing but “Disarmed Victim Zones” for budding psychopaths.

I know I shouldn’t hope for the news to include information like that in their reports. I’m just glad that the expert didn’t start screaming “Ban all guns!” and jump about frothing at the mouth as I expected, or blither techno-nonsense about “super automatic high-powered assault sniper guns” that can be purchased anywhere by children using their underwear labels as ID. Maybe on another channel.