In an op-ed posted at ocregister.com, author and criminologist John Lott said those seeking to further restrict the legal carry of handguns on school grounds in California have an answer in search of a problem.
“But the simple fact is that there haven’t been any problems,” wrote Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. “Prior to the early 1990s, there were no state laws specifically restricting concealed carry on K-12 property. In 2015, when California became the first state in at least 40 years to pass a law restricting concealed carry on school grounds, no one could point to a single incident in California. That hasn’t changed in the last two years.”
Lott continued that, unfortunately, gun-free zones, like what those in California are seeking, don’t make places “safe.”
“Since at least 1950, all but four mass public shootings in America have taken place where citizens are banned from carrying guns,” he said. “Unsurprisingly, killers try to avoid armed resistance.”
