As we talk repeatedly about the topic of mass public shootings at our nation’s schools, I find it almost amusing how many people seem to ignore that these schools are gun-free zones. While a few states have some kind of campus carry that permits licensed individuals to carry on public school property, most don’t. Even most campus carry states prohibit the lawful carry of guns on school campuses. Sure, colleges might be required to accept it, but if you need to have a parent-teacher conference or anything, forget it.
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That sucks, but it gets worse. Many states have “buffer zones” that prohibit the carrying of firearms within so much distance of a school. This creates a problem for a lot of people because technically, just walking down the street on a public sidewalk could lead you to violate the gun-free zone surrounding a school.
The kicker is that laws creating these buffer zones aren’t even new. They’ve been on the books for decades, but now they’re being challenged.
In fact, the Second Amendment Foundation has filed an amicus brief to assist in that challenge.
From a press release:
The Second Amendment Foundation has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco supporting the defendant in a Montana case which challenges the federal gun-free school zones law. The case is known as United States of America v. Gabriel Cowan Metcalf.
SAF is joined by the California Rifle & Pistol Association, Second Amendment Law Center, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, Second Amendment Defense and Education Coalition and Federal Firearms Licensees of Illinois. They are represented by attorneys C.D. Michel, Joshua Robert Dale and Konstadinos T. Moros at Michel & Associates of Long Beach, Calif.
Metcalf lives in Billings, across the street from an elementary school. Local police were notified he was carrying a firearm while walking in his yard, and in the neighborhood. He told officers he was patrolling the neighborhood to protect himself and his mother from a stalker against whom she had a protection order. Montana law does not prohibit the carrying of firearms in proximity to a school.
“The Metcalf case is a textbook example of what is wrong with the ‘gun-free school zones’ act,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The law was written as a solution to school shootings, but in the process, it effectively disarms and legally jeopardizes law-abiding citizens who live within a picked-out-of-the-hat 1,000-foot perimeter, or those who simply travel through such areas in the course of their daily business. Pick any rural community in the country and you will find schools within close proximity of business districts, supermarkets and gas stations; places visited daily by legally-armed, peaceable citizens.”
“As we explain in our brief, all overbearing ‘sensitive place’ restrictions are an affront to the Second Amendment,” noted SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut, “and buffer zone laws are in their own special category because they can lead to accidental violations. Overlapping school zones can make it literally impossible for people to legally carry firearms, and this is exactly the situation in Billings, and similar communities all over the country. People living in, or moving through these communities can be charged and prosecuted, permanently costing them their Second Amendment rights. Such restrictions clearly make the law unconstitutional.”
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The buffer zones are one way someone can commit those three felonies a day and not realize it. Just carrying a firearm in close proximity to a school–and depending on the state, it doesn’t have to be all that close–can land you in hot water.
What’s more, they don’t work.
Take a look at school shootings, for a moment. They happen all across the country–particularly if you’re as lose on the definition of “school shooting” as some are–and they’ve never stopped a mass shooting at a school. They don’t do anything to protect students. Nothing at all, which was the reason they were implemented.
And, to be fair, the Bruen decision did give the green light to making certain “sensitive places” gun-free zones, and few are going to argue that schools are sensitive places.
But that’s not the issue, is it? I don’t think gun-free zones work at all, and I wish Bruen slapped down gun-free zones as a whole, but it didn’t, so we’re stuck with them, but this isn’t about guns on a high school campus. It’s about guns across the street in someone’s private yard. It’s about walking down the street next to a school. It’s about driving down the road two blocks away from a school.
I wish the SAF the best of luck on this one.
