BELLEVUE, WA – The tragic shooting at Northern Illinois University late Thursday is another failure of the “gun free zone†mentality that has created a false sense of security on college campuses and other public venues across the country, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.
“Gun-free zones have given us nothing but body counts,†said CCRKBA Chairman Alan M. Gottlieb. “This giant loophole in public safety is becoming a national disgrace and it is time to dramatically change our perspective on self-defense in this country.
“This incident is particularly distressing because it happened in Illinois, one of two remaining states in which anti-gun state lawmakers and equally-anti-gun governors have repeatedly thwarted common sense efforts to put law-abiding citizens on a level playing field with criminals and crazies by adopting right-to-carry laws,†Gottlieb stated. “Illinois and Wisconsin lawmakers have chosen to leave their citizens at the mercy of killers who have no mercy.
At least three people were killed and more than a dozen others wounded in the campus shooting. It occurred two weeks after a gunman murdered five women at a suburban Chicago shopping mall. Gottlieb, co-author of America Fights Back: Armed Self-Defense in a Violent Age, available from www.amazon.com and in bookstores, said the two biggest threats to public safety today are gun free zones and legislative resistance to right-to-carry laws.
“Illinois lawmakers and anti-gun rights extremists should start explaining right now why they have consistently and systematically resisted progressive, sensible changes in state gun laws that would give people a fighting chance against this kind of outrage,†Gottlieb said. “Advocates of gun-free zones across the country should be held accountable for defending these areas of victim disarmament. These are places where violent criminals and crazies know they will face no resistance as they carry out their rampages.
“It is time for Illinois citizens to demand that lawmakers in Springfield either change the laws right now, or resign from office,†Gottlieb said. “Their jaded approach to self-defense and gun ownership in general, is nothing short of malfeasance. They have failed miserably in their responsibility to public safety, and the blood of all of these victims is on their hands, and on the hands of gun control extremists everywhere.â€