BELLEVUE, WA – The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today accused Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun lobbying group, Everytown for Gun Safety, of working to keep schools vulnerable to violent attack, while also challenging the group’s claim that there have been more than 140 school shootings since 2013.
Earlier this week, Everytown published a map of the United States, showing where it claims there have been 142 school shootings over the past two years. A list with very brief details of each incident accompanied the map.
“The only thing this map proves, which Everytown ignores,” said CCRKBAA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “is that ‘gun free school zones’ do not work and are a magnet for violent and crazy people to commit atrocities in a target rich environment. It’s more than a bit ironic that the very thing that Everytown is railing against is the one thing that will optimally protect students, teachers and faculty from a crazed and armed sociopath.”
But Gottlieb also suggested that this map might be open to question, based on a finding earlier this year by the Washington Post Fact Checker that “it is difficult to see how many of the incidents included in Everytown’s list — such as suicide in a car parked on a campus or a student accidentally shooting himself when emptying his gun and putting it away in his car before school — would be considered a ‘school shooting’ in the context of Sandy Hook.”
“The Washington Post in June gave this claim Four Pinocchios, which is tantamount to calling it a bald-faced lie,” Gottlieb said. “At that time, the newspaper was criticizing U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) for using the figure in a speech on June 24, but the numbers came from Everytown.
“Whether the numbers are accurate or not,” he concluded, “the fact remains that Everytown is perpetuating a dangerous situation that leaves our schools, colleges and universities vulnerable to tragedy. Even if it saves just one life, the ‘gun free school zones’ concept must be abolished. The safety of our children depends on it.”