Amendment Quote by John R. Lott Jr
““In a 2013 interview with academics who do research on gun control and gun-free zones, Jake Berry, a reporter with the Nashua Telegraph (New Hampshire) found: “On the whole, Lott’s colleagues—both in the media and academia—don’t dispute his findings.”31 The dispute is over why these attacks keep occurring where guns are banned: •David Hemenway, a public health researcher at Harvard, explained: “I suspect that most places that mass public shootings could logically occur are ‘gun-free zones’ either determined by the government (schools) or by private businesses and institutions.” •Similarly, Dan Webster, a public health researcher at Johns Hopkins, said: “Schools might be a likely target because that is where a mass of people congregate and those people involve a lot of troubled adolescents who may harbor bad feelings toward the people there who bullied them, were unfair to them, etc. The shooters in these instances didn’t say, ‘Hey, I’ll find a gun-free zone where I can shoot a lot of people.’ No, they went to a place for reasons wholly unrelated to gun-free zones.””
About This Quote
Source Interview: 2013 Nashua Telegraph interview, New Hampshire
The quote highlights debate over whether gun‑free zones cause mass shootings or merely attract shooters for unrelated reasons.
In simple terms: People argue about the cause of shootings in gun‑free areas.
Key Takeaway
Consider context before blaming policy.
Themes
gun policy
public safety
research debate
mass shootings
Mood
analytical
concerned
Type
explanatory
policy‑oriented
When to use this quote
- school security planning
- legislative hearings
- media reporting
- academic research
Key Concepts
public health
criminology
policy analysis
Questions to Reflect On
- Are gun‑free zones a symptom or cause of violence?
- What other factors drive shooters to schools?
A Different Perspective
The quote does not address the effectiveness of armed security as an alternative.
