We’ve reported a number of times over the past few years about how mass murderers often look for the most unprotected people they can find before launching an attack. So-called “gun-free” zones fit the bill, since only those who don’t care about the law are armed in such places.
In fact, Dr. John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), has been explaining for years that many mass murderers intentionally gravitate toward so-called “gun-free” zones because they know they cause maximum damage without being confronted by someone with a firearm.
“They know if they go to a place where their victims are defenseless, they’re going to be able to go and kill more people and get more media attention,” Lott recently told Fox News.
Unfortunately for the kids and teachers at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the most recent mass murderer also chose the softest target possible. Wednesday’s shooting at the church unfolded as young students from the church’s parochial school attended mass during their first week back in classrooms. The tragedy ultimately left two children, aged 8 and 10, dead and 17 others injured.
“I recently heard a rumor that James Holmes, the Aurora theater shooter, may have chosen venues that were ‘gun-free zones,’” the trans killer, who we won’t name here, wrote in his “manifesto.” “I would probably aim the same way, to shoot on the run and maybe change some minds.”
The killer further wrote: “I understand why high-security places like prisons and airports are different. But for most public places, the people going in are unarmed. Holmes wanted to make sure his victims would be unarmed. That’s why I and many others like schools so much. At least for me, I am focused on them. Adam Lanza is my reason.”
Of course, if that sounds like a recurrent theme, it is. A number of school shooters in past years chose their target simply because of them being in a gun-free zone.
A great example is the Covenant School shooting in Nashville in March 2023.
According to the Nashville police chief: “It was the only school that was targeted. There was another location that was mentioned, but because of a threat assessment by the suspect of too much security, they decided not to. That area was here in Nashville, so we’re continuing with that investigation as well.”
Schools aren’t the only soft targets mass murderers concentrate on, however.
In early August, a gunman who blamed the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for an illness opened fire at the CDC, targeting a location where victims were banned from carrying firearms.
Only a few days earlier, a soldier at Fort Stewart in Georgia shot and wounded five fellow soldiers before being disarmed. According to Lott, typically only authorized designated security forces such as MPs are armed on duty. Any other soldier caught carrying a firearm faces severe consequences, ranging from a rank reduction, court-martial, potential criminal convictions, dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay, and even imprisonment.
Because of the number of school shootings in the past few years, one federal lawmakers is seeking to overturn the law that makes firearms on school grounds illegal. On August 29, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, re-introduced the “Safe Students Act,” which would repeal the “Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990.”
The measure would eliminate the GFSZA’s one-size-fits-all federal ban on guns in school zones and make it easier for state and local governments and school boards to unambiguously set their own firearms policies.
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