I have a hard time swallowing the Mother Jones data whole, because I know on issues that I am very informed on, their data has shown to be misleading in the past.
Here's a fun statistic though, since you're in the process of number crunching -- every mass shooting in the US since 1950 (except for perhaps that Gabby Gifford shooting in Arizona) has occurred in a 'gun free zone', where the shooters had the highest probability of completing their shooting sprees with the least fear of being stopped.
Of those, most telling (to me at least) is the Aurora, CO shooting, because while Colorado is generally a fairly well armed state, the shooter bypassed six other theaters that were closer to his home, including the largest theater, where he could have done the most damage, in lieu of taking his gun into the one nearby theater that specifically disallowed guns from being carried inside.
That's a myth. Consider the Clackamas Town Center shooting: Nick Meli had a concealed carry permit and was carrying a weapon, although he correctly didn't take a shot. We could argue about whether or not the shooter saw Meli and committed suicide as a result, but that's irrelevant: the shooter didn't choose a gun free zone.
It depends on how you characterize "gun free." In many states signs prohibiting firearms don't carry the weight of the law. That is, if you are found to be carrying you can be asked to leave (and charged with trespassing if you refuse), but that's it.
From my understanding the mall in Clackamas is a posted "gun free zone," but the posted signs don't actually carry any legal weight.
But aren't we walking a fairly narrow line here? In order for this to be a meaningful distinction, we have to assume that mass shooters a) plan their attacks, b) are smart enough to choose gun free zones, and c) are dumb enough not to know that a gun free zone isn't necessarily free from guns?
I think that in many cases, we would find that yes, mass shooters do plan their attacks (Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora) and actually have long fantasies about them.
Calling mass shooters stupid is, I think, a naive assertion. They're obviously flawed, but not necessarily in a way that makes them less effective at planning or committing violence.
And while 'c' is potentially valid, I think that what you'd find is that, as most citizens tend to fall into the 'law abiding' category, where there are signs posted disallowing guns, you'd find that most citizens won't carry them. So even if the 'gun free zone' is not found to be 100% devoid of guns, you are almost certain to find it less armed than if signs weren't posted.
We've slipped from "every mass shooting" to "in many cases." I thought your comment was worth researching, and I should note that I found more mass shootings taking place in gun-free zones than I'd expected -- I'm glad you made the point. But I would also suggest that you may be accepting the research done by gun rights partisans with less skepticism than it deserves.
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?398679-62-Mass-S... is I think my final point here; it's a sympathetic gun rights advocate who went to the trouble of tracking and linking local ordinances where possible. He's only proven the case in about half the incidents. I know John Lott claims he researched all of them. If you happen to know where his supporting documentation is I'd be sincerely interested.
You may be right. I'm looking at an MAIG report, and while I trust their analysis even less, it clearly points to newer incidents that I was previously unaware of. This may be an overlap on the data, as I'm quoting a fairly old study, or it may be that the study was incomplete.
I might be looking at a full on amendment here, or there may have been more statistical jiggery pokery that somehow excludes findings incongruent with the expected results. Either way, I'll do more research and get back. Thanks for the correction -- while the link you posted isn't necessarily conclusive, it did spur me to freshen my data sets at the very least.
Here's a fun statistic though, since you're in the process of number crunching -- every mass shooting in the US since 1950 (except for perhaps that Gabby Gifford shooting in Arizona) has occurred in a 'gun free zone', where the shooters had the highest probability of completing their shooting sprees with the least fear of being stopped.
Of those, most telling (to me at least) is the Aurora, CO shooting, because while Colorado is generally a fairly well armed state, the shooter bypassed six other theaters that were closer to his home, including the largest theater, where he could have done the most damage, in lieu of taking his gun into the one nearby theater that specifically disallowed guns from being carried inside.