Originally Posted by MissileDog
I'm not, I'm discussing weapons casualties, not just mass killings. Nobody is suggesting we make our world less net safe overall in an effort to only stop a few mass killing, are they?
Because correlation != causation. Because we can come up with a reason the killer picked his spot in most of the mass killings, and it wasn't because of any weapons quarantine policy. Because the gun-nuts are willfully conflating areas where a weapons monopoly is attempted with a weapons free zone. Because there is no statistical control regarding the number of weapons free zones -vs- weapons monopoly zones -vs- free for all carry zones. Because it implies that weapons quarantine areas are somehow inherently unsafe by themselves, it implies more weapons => less weapons casualties.
And what can we take away from these situations? Well one thing we can take away is that it is net safer inside these weapons quarantine areas. That in fact, these weapons quarantine areas are a sign of relative safety... the exact opposite of 'killing zone' meme which attempts to paint weapons quarantine zones as a sign of a relative lack of safety.
It's not a matter of what I 'want'. There are plenty of schools right now with armed guards and metal detectors. Most large urban school districts have their own police department, and do project an armed presence on campus. My question is why?
Let's look at some possible scenarios...
(a) A factory/school/church has an epidemic of weapons casualties. If the manager/principle/pastor is only given the choices of (1) establishing a weapons monopoly policy, or (2) encouraging customers, students, worshipers, employees, visitors and vendors to carry weapons in an unorganized manner, which do they overwhelming choose?
(b) A factory/school/church doesn't have an epidemic of weapons casualties, but would still like to improve their net safety. If the manager/principle/pastor is only given the choices of (1) establishing a weapons free zone, passively enforced, or (2) encouraging customers, students, worshipers, employees, visitors and vendors to carry weapons in an unorganized manner, which do they overwhelming choose?
Earlier RedBean speculated that very few, or perhaps none, of the F500 companies allow their non-security employees to carry weapons at work. Very, very, very few schools allow non-security employees to carry weapons on campus. And I'm just gonna guess that the vast majority of churches that actually have a specific weapons policy also have some sort of a quarantine.
Almost to the point of being unanimous, trained professionals in the security business advice some sort of quarantine, and almost to the point of being unanimous, the responsible decision makers choose some sort of quarantine.
And... they would all, all of them, have to be flat out wrong, and basically stupid to evil, if we believe in the gun-nut 'killing zone' meme. On the other hand... if we assume the security profession in general, and the vast, vast majority of responsible decision makers in particular, are not flat out wrong, or stupid, or evil then... the 'killing zone' meme is a buncha crap.