Think Like a Criminal to Stop Mass-Murder

Few of us act like criminals. That is good. Even fewer of us think and act like mass-murderers. That is good too, and I’m grateful for your restraint. Most of us think like honest citizens and that lack of imagination has deadly consequences. Thinking like a choir boy won’t stop mass-murderers who want to kill us and our children. I wish I was describing some abstract theory, but unfortunately I am describing the harsh facts we face everyday.  Ignoring evil gets us killed. Consider these two points of view and judge for yourself.

–One perspective says we should forbid people from bringing firearms into a building where we gather. That should make all of us safer while we are there. That claim makes complete sense to most honest people. Without guns around, there are fewer ways that an attacker can hurt innocent victims. How obvious to anyone who gives it even a moment’s thought. The more buildings and outdoor areas that are “gun-free”, the safer we would be.

Now I want us to reconsider that from a different point of view. When it comes to violence, we are completely uninterested in limiting the behavior of honest and law abiding citizens. We want to change the behavior of criminals and violent attackers. Ask yourself how a criminal thinks and how he acts.

–Laws are for honest people. Barring honest people from going armed in a building doesn’t change the behavior of people who break the law. In fact, criminals look for easy victims and a plastic “no guns allowed” sign delivers those defenseless victims on a platter.

The plastic “no guns allowed” sign doesn’t turn criminals away: it attracts them.

Did you really think that murderers and thieves obey our rules and put down their weapons because of a plastic sign? Well, when we say it that bluntly, the answer is yes.

Yes, I expected criminals to obey our rules. Maybe some of them will.

The proponents of “gun-free” zones say that the plastic signs might help and that they do no harm. That statement depends on us not knowing the truth that brightly brands that claim as a lie.

You already know the truth. Criminals attack the elderly and handicapped precisely because they are easy victims. Mass-murderers attack us in so-called “gun-free” zones 49-out-of-50-times because they want easy victims and a high body-count. Said another way, we are almost 50 times safer from mass-murderers when we are outside of a “gun-free” zone.

You might not know this, but mass-murders do. The attackers know that more than half of the attempted mass-murders are stopped by armed citizens where those citizens are allowed to go armed. That is why mass-murderers deliberately select “gun free” zones 98 percent of the time. When ordinary citizens are allowed to go armed, we are about 99-times safer than if we are in a “gun-free” zone that is only guarded by a plastic sign. This makes more sense once you remember that about one-out-of-12 citizens go legally armed in public today. One out of a dozen doesn’t stop every crime, but it spreads doubt for every criminal and for every mass-murderer.

We already knew this if we stop and think about it. It isn’t the plastic signs that defend the courthouse and the statehouse: it is the armed guards. Judges and legislators insist on defenders in uniform, but most of us don’t have armed security to defend us at taxpayers expense. Unless you are a billionaire or a celebrity who hires armed guards, it is up to us to protect ourselves and our families.

Tens of millions of us do that. We go armed at home and in public. Most of us never notice our armed neighbors because concealed is concealed. We forget about our armed neighbors and we don’t appreciate what we can’t see. In contrast, the criminals pay very close attention.

Criminals avoid armed victims the way they avoid armed police officers. The bad guys look for places where honest citizens are disarmed. Criminals and mass-murderers have hunted us at prohibited places like schools and train stations where it is illegal to go armed. Criminals hunt for us at bars late at night because we can’t be armed if we go drinking. The plastic “no-guns” sign disarmed the designated driver as well as the evening drinker. Again, the plastic “no-guns” signs sorted out the easy victims for the criminals and the mass-murderers.

It turns out that the thin plastic “no-guns allowed” signs stop lawsuits but they do not stop bullets. The signs protect the property owners but they don’t protect the public.

Take down the plastic signs. It is time we stopped making life easier for the bad guys. You know how to do that once you think like a criminal.
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I gave you 700 words. Please share them with a friend and leave a comment.
Thank you for reading this far. RM