It’s Time to Abolish Gun-Free Zones

Exactly how many more innocent, unarmed teachers and students need to be slaughtered on a school campus before people get angry enough to demand that the Nevada Legislature abolish these absolutely insane gun-free zones?

The recent shooting at the Sparks Middle School is particularly infuriating. One teacher was shot and killed. Two students were shot and seriously wounded. And it could have been a lot worse if the kid with the gun had decided to keep shooting other kids instead of killing himself.

Here’s the most outrageous part of this. The murdered teacher, Michael Landsberry, was a trained U.S. Marine who served two tours in Afghanistan and was a member of the Nevada Air National Guard. So we’re talking about a man thoroughly trained in the use of weapons who we completely trusted with our national security.

And yet Nevada’s Legislature didn’t trust Michael Landsberry enough to allow him the means necessary to protect himself and dozens of 7th- and 8th-graders on that school playground that fateful morning. As such, this trained military veteran was forced to confront an armed assailant with nothing more than two empty, outstretched hands and the hope that he could talk the kid down.

Instead, Michael Landsberry was gunned down.

And while everyone is clearly saddened by the loss of this extraordinary American hero and family man, I hope that sadness eventually turns into blood-boiling rage. Because this man didn’t deserve to die and he didn’t need to die. He at least deserved a fighting chance to defend himself and those students by being allowed, if he had so chosen, to carry a weapon with him to work, as countless other Nevadans do every single day throughout the state.

Michael Landsberry’s death is on the heads of every pontificating, self-righteous, anti-gun member of the Nevada Legislature who supports the continuation of these gun-free zones and who opposed the common sense “campus carry” bills that were introduced in both the 2011 and 2013 legislative sessions.

Here’s an undeniable truth: Disturbed students, crazy people and bad guys don’t give a (expletive) about gun control laws that say they shouldn’t possess a gun or take one into a gun-free zone. If they want a gun they’ll get a gun, regardless of whether or not they can pass a background check.

As such, the fact is “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” And the only way to potentially prevent school playgrounds and classrooms from becoming shooting galleries in the future is to allow responsible, properly trained adults the means to protect themselves and our children when a merchant of death comes knocking at the schoolyard gate.

It’s time to abolish these insane gun-free zones.

God bless you and rest in peace, Mr. Landsberry. Semper Fi.

Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, a conservative grassroots advocacy organization. He can be reached at www.MuthsTruths.com