Josh First's Blog

Colorado shooting is another “Gun Free Zone”

Another crazy guy (and it’s almost always a guy, why is that) walks into a store and shoots innocent people just going about their business. So far ten people are dead, among them a local police officer doing his duty to protect and serve.

Colorado is a western state, with a strong history of cowboys, self-reliance, and private gun ownership. Especially carrying a sidearm for personal protection kind of gun ownership. Across most of Colorado a person can expect that a great many people around you are carrying a concealed firearm, for their own protection and for yours.

But in recent decades, beautiful western states like Colorado and Montana have seen an influx of Californians fleeing the disastrous policies of otherwise-beautiful California. But these refugees bring with them the same failed mindset and foolish policies they fled and had left behind in California. Slowly but surely, these transplants begin working to implement the same exact laws, policies and regulations that are even now destroying California. And where would these liberal transplants focus most? Why gun elimination, of course.

Boulder City in Colorado is the poster child for liberalism or woke-ism run amok, and every type of Marxist regulation and ordinance possible can now be found in Boulder, in an otherwise pretty free state of Colorado. One of the things that most of the Boulder residents really don’t like is guns, or gun ownership. And so, the store in which yesterday’s mass shooting occurred fell in line and had a “Gun Free Zone” warning on its front door.

When a store posts this kind of warning on its door, it usually means that anyone carrying a firearm on the premises could be subject to criminal charges. And so those people who do carry a concealed firearm almost always avoid these kinds of stores. I suppose they would rather be safe than sorry, and so they shop elsewhere.

So, who or what kind of person ignores the “Gun Free Zone” sticker or sign on the store front entry? Well, it just might be a crazy person, like yesterday’s shooter guy. People looking for soft targets can and often do target places where they reasonably expect to encounter little or no armed resistance.

What would have been the outcome of his attack, had there been several patrons in the store that day carrying firearms? Do we think the result might have been different, as the result has been different in other places where “a good guy with a gun” managed to stop the assault as it was beginning?

Gun Free Zones do not work. They are infantile make-believe wishful thinking that all bad things would just go away. Yes, Gun Free Zones are the equivalent of a #badthingsjustgoaway mindset, which is not a grown up, mature, contemplative way to approach reality. But apparently, so many Americans have experienced so little reality or real life challenge that they actually believe this kind of weak policy works. This childish mindset is at the core of the gun confiscation movement: “If we can just get rid of guns, then there will be no more bad things.”

Which is of course nonsense, because after all the known guns are eliminated, then the unknown guns held by bad people will come out. And American society will become a shooting gallery, because no one but a police officer here or there will be around to stop the carnage.

If you doubt this prediction, just look at this Colorado store. There is your Gun Free environment right there. A real effective policy, right?  A real peaceful, safe place, right?!

UPDATE: Turns out the murderous lunatic is another peace-loving jihadi named Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, from Syria. Turns out America doesn’t need gun confiscation or regulation, we need immigration control.