QUOTE(Lancaster Online @ Feb 22 2008, 11:28 AM)
Jesse Rothacker, 26, who lives near Mount Joy, has a permit to carry and does so in frequent visits to
Central Park.
"Police can't be everywhere, all the time, especially in expansive parks with lonely, deserted trails," he says in a letter to the editor in today's New Era.
"Disarming lawful citizens only serves to embolden criminals who hold no regard for park policy or the law. These types of anti-gun measures may help some people feel safer. Unfortunately, feeling safer and actually being safer are not the same things.
"As we have grimly learned at
Virginia Tech and the University of Northern Illinois, "gun-free zones" only create the illusion of safety, where victims are defenseless."
Michael Stollenwerk, a former county resident and guns-rights activist, said of the proposed ban, "A crime can happen anywhere, and people have the right to defend themselves and others."
I completely agree. Additionally, it is very likely that armed and hostile individuals who wish to murder children and then kill themselves at schools choose schools for two reasons;
1. Lack of armed resistance due to "Gun Free School Zone" feel-good laws. Homicidal and suicidal predators can murder at will until police are able to respond and put a rescue plan into operation. Police "active shooter" rescue duties take much more time to organize and activate than most people would expect.
2. Schools are "target rich". Lock-downed kids at school are abundant and stationary victims.
My point is that advertising an area as "gun-free" may actually attract kooks looking for mass murder and suicide as their ticket to their final "15 minutes of fame". An armed society is a polite society.
