So if you're talking about school shootings, I agree, most of those would likely be "gun free zones". If you're talking about mass shootings in general - most are not gun free zones:Jusme wrote: The majority of shootings that have occurred on college campuses and other locations have been where guns were prohibited. Virginia Tech, Aurora Colorado, etc..
From what I can find, 2009-2015, 133 "mass" shootings (mass being 4 or more people killed):
94 incidents on private property (not "gun free zones")
38 incidents public spaces, 17 of these public spaces were "gun free".
So that's about 12% of the incidents were in gun free zones. It doesn't scream "unsafe" to me. The question is, if those zones allowed guns, would it drop below 12%? That's not so obvious.
Although one would think that criminals would seek soft/easy targets, I'm not sure that such is the primary motivation of such mass killings.. Seems to me - this is about attention, not the safety of the shooter... But I don't know that you'll get first hand accounts from that many shooters.
To me, being on a college campus really hasn't changed much decades ago. I think that firearms should be allowed, but don't forget that not everyone is a responsible gun owner, especially in a college environment, so statistically there will be undesired consequences (aka "accidents"). That's not me arguing against it 2nd amendment on campus, it's simply stating a fact. Probably of accidents do not necessarily negate the rights of personal protection, at least not to me.
I'm not sure that an educational institution's firearms policy sways my educational choices very much, at least not in terms of safety. In terms of politics maybe, but that's a conscious choice, and it doesn't try to point to an issue of safety which doesn't seem to be there.. The odds of being killed in a mass shooting are something like 1 in 12 Million and they're actually substantially lower than that (see mass shootings above) if you're only considering these incidents that happen at an educational institution. If you really think that a "no guns" policy is a big safety concern, wouldn't you pull your kids out of current public schools and enroll them in a private school with some sort of armed protection?
The reality is that it's probably much more effective to upgrade the safety of you kids' vehicle - that's much more likely to have a primary influence on their well being.
This is one of those media-hyped issues that leads to heated debate and some level of hysteria. The threat to public safety (with or without guns) seems to be ridiculously low compared to other every-day risks that we have some control over.