{"id":18,"date":"2007-12-16T05:14:13","date_gmt":"2007-12-16T10:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/?p=18"},"modified":"2016-07-02T20:10:28","modified_gmt":"2016-07-03T03:10:28","slug":"18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/?p=18","title":{"rendered":"Guns not allowed at Omaha Mall (scene of December, 2007 shooting)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"220px-VonMaurOmaha\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Police have identified Robert A. Hawkins, 19, as the young nut case who killed eight innocent people \u2014 seriously wounding five more \u2014 with a semi-automatic rifle (not an assault rifle) at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska Dec. 5.<\/p>\n

Chalk up eight more deaths to \u201cgun control.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hawkins left a suicide note, in which The Associated Press tells us he wrote \u201cI just want to take a few pieces of (expletive) with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The shooting was at least the fourth at an American mall or shopping center so far this year, following incidents in Salt Lake City, Utah; Kansas City, Missouri; and Douglasville, Georgia.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t have to speculate whether this killer -\u2014 like so many before him -\u2014 chose a known gun-free zone for his carefully planned rampage.<\/p>\n

Nebraska issues permits \u201callowing\u201d qualified individuals people to carry concealed handguns after they acquire a permit. (The word \u201callowing\u201d is in quotes because the 2nd and 14th amendments reaffirm weapons-carrying to be a right, not a privilege -\u2014 states have no more legitimate power to \u201callow\u201d or \u201cdisallow\u201d weapons carrying than they have the right to \u201callow\u201d or \u201cdisallow\u201d attendance at religious services or the publishing of newspapers.)<\/p>\n

Leaving aside this \u201cpermitting\u201d scheme, current Nebraska law quite properly does allow property owners, such as the Westroads Mall, to post signs banning permit holders from legally carrying guns on their property.<\/p>\n

(\u201cSome chains such as Bag ‘N Save have posted signs and shopping malls such as Westroads Mall have added ‘no weapons\u2019 clauses to their posted codes of conduct,\u201d the Omaha World-Herald reported on March 28, 2007.)<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe same was true for the attack at the Trolley Square Mall in Utah in February,\u201d reports John Lott in his Dec. 6 article on FoxNews.com headlined \u201cMedia Coverage of Mall Shooting Fails to Reveal Mall\u2019s Gun-Free-Zone Status.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

The question is not whether private property owners do and should have a right to bar firearms on their property \u2014- they do. (Though selective bans on only SOME civilians would surely be easier to challenge; watch to see if government police officers called to such locales are made to check their weapons before entering. Police are<\/em> civilians.)<\/p>\n

Rather, the first question here is whether our government agencies are making it fully clear to private employers and the managers of buildings otherwise open to the public -\u2014 such as Clark County\u2019s courthouses and public libraries, right here in Las Vegas -\u2014 that they will not be shielded from the financial repercussions should employees or customers die under circumstances where they could otherwise have defended themselves and others with their own firearms.<\/p>\n

The second question? The aforementioned John Lott, author of the book Freedomnomics<\/em> and a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland, put it very well in the Fox News column in question:<\/p>\n

\u201cA Google news search using the phrase ‘Omaha Mall Shooting\u2019 finds an incredible 2,794 news stories worldwide\u201d about the mall shooting in the first 24 hours alone, Mr. Lott notes. \u201cBut despite the massive news coverage, none of the media coverage, at least by 10 a.m. Thursday, mentioned this central fact: Yet another attack occurred in a gun-free zone.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurely, with all the reporters who appear at these crime scenes and seemingly interview virtually everyone there, why didn\u2019t one simply mention the signs that ban guns from the premises?\u201d asks Mr. Lott, who posts the \u201cNo weapons allowed\u201d sign from Salt Lake City\u2019s Trolley Square Mall (it\u2019s item 10) on his website<\/a>. \u201cBut again the media coverage ignored this fact.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh come on, Vin,\u201d some will protest at this point. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t matter even if these places did allow people to carry guns. Hardly anyone goes armed even when it\u2019s allowed, so how often would a plain old non-policeman with a gun really save lives?<\/p>\n

Pretty often, it turns out.<\/p>\n

In 1997, Luke Woodham slit his mother\u2019s throat, grabbed a .30-30 lever action rifle and a bunch of ammo and headed to Pearl High School in Pearl, Miss. -\u2014 another gun-free zone -\u2014 to start shooting people.<\/p>\n

The moment Vice Principal Joel Myrick heard the first shots, he took off at a sprint for his truck. (Because Mr. Myrick had a handgun in his truck, a deadly stupid federal law required him to park it far from campus.)<\/p>\n

He loaded the gun and went looking for the killer.<\/p>\n

Woodham shot until he heard sirens, then ran to his car. His plan, authorities subsequently learned, was to drive to nearby Pearl Junior High School and shoot more kids before police could show up.<\/p>\n

The armed vice principal foiled that plan. He saw the killer fleeing the campus and positioned himself to point a gun at the windshield. Woodham, seeing the gun pointed at his head, crashed the car. Myrick approached the killer and confronted him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked him his name. He said ‘You know me, Mr. Myrick. Remember? I gave you a discount on your pizza delivery last week,\u201d recalls Myrick, who has since become Principal of Corinth High School.<\/p>\n

In 2002, as Mr. Lott himself reported in The National Review the following year, \u201cTwo law students with law-enforcement backgrounds as deputy sheriffs in another state stopped the shooting at the Appalachian Law School in Virginia. When the attack started the students ran to their cars, got their guns, pointed their guns at the attacker, ordered him to drop his gun, and then tackled him and held him until police were able to arrive,\u201d thus undoubtedly saving many lives.<\/p>\n

At the Trolley Square attack in Utah this year, \u201cPossibly the ban there was even more noteworthy because the off-duty police officer who stopped the attack fortunately violated the ban by taking his gun in with him when he went shopping,\u201d Mr. Lott reports.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are plenty of cases every year where permit holders stop what would have been multiple victim shootings, but they rarely receive any news coverage,\u201d Mr. Lott protests. \u201cWhen will part of the media coverage on these multiple-victim public shootings be whether guns were banned where the attack occurred? . . . Isn\u2019t it important to know why all the victims were disarmed?\u201d<\/p>\n

Reporters are trained to ask if car crash victims were wearing their seat belts, after all.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe law-abiding, not criminals, are obeying the rules. Disarming the victims simply means that the killers have less to fear,\u201d Mr. Lott concludes.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, we saw the way it works when citizens are armed, less than a week after the Nebraska shootings. Shortly after midnight on Sunday Dec. 9, Matthew Murray, a 24-year-old who had been rejected from a missionary school in Colorado, shot and killed two staffers there. Twelve hours later he drove to the parking lot of the related New Life Church in Colorado Springs, where about 7,000 people were present as the midday service wound to a close, and opened fire in the parking lot, killing two young women and wounding their father.<\/p>\n

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Jeanne Assam, 42, a member of the congregation who used to work as a police officer, volunteers to serve as a security guard at the church.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shots were so loud I thought he was inside,\u201d Ms. Assam recalls. Then \u201cI saw him coming through the doors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assam hid -\u2014 a wise course for a handgunner facing a rifleman. She waited until Murray -\u2014 carrying a rifle, two pistols and a backpack with more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition -\u2014 got close enough. Then she \u201ccame out of cover, identified myself and took him down,\u201d she told a packed news conference the next day. \u201cI just knew I was not going to wait for him to do any more damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

The coroner later reported the wounded assailant took his own life, presumably with one of his pistols.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just prayed to the Holy Spirit to guide me,\u201d Assam told a packed news conference Monday. \u201cI give the credit to God. This has got to be God, because of the firepower he had versus what I have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Authorities and her minister said Assam saved untold lives. Lives that would have been lost, if Murray had attacked in a disarmed-victim city like Los Angeles, New York or Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hand wasn\u2019t even shaking,\u201d she said. \u201cIt seemed like it was me, the gunman and God.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, of course, Jeanne Assam\u2019s handgun.<\/p>\n

If you frequent public buildings or work for an employer who bars you from carrying your otherwise legal self-defense weapon on the premises, consider informing your loved ones in writing that \u2014 in the event you should die under circumstances where you could have saved yourself and others with your handgun \u2014 you want the proprietor sued to the extent their \u201cno guns\u201d policy contributed to your death or injuries.<\/p>\n

People have got to learn: Guns save lives; banning guns can cost dearly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Police have identified Robert A. Hawkins, 19, as the young nut case who killed eight innocent people \u2014 seriously wounding five more \u2014 with a semi-automatic rifle (not an assault rifle) at the Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska Dec. 5. Chalk up eight more deaths to \u201cgun control.\u201d Hawkins left a suicide note, in which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,29,22,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2nd-amendment","category-heroes","category-media","category-self-defense"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sWqFl-18","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3313,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions\/3313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vinsuprynowicz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}