As President Obama unveiled the most assertive gun-control plan in decades, Colorado Republicans introduced a measure to require businesses to provide armed guards for patrons.<\/p>\n
This past Wednesday, in response to recent mass shootings and the president\u2019s plan for gun control, a measure was introduced in the Colorado legislature which would require privately-owned businesses to provide armed security for patrons if those patrons are not allowed to carry their own firearms.\u00a0 According to the Fox21News.com report<\/a>, such a measure would actually require businesses to provide armed guards for \u201cevery 50 patrons if the patrons are banned from carrying guns.\u201d\u00a0 Venues such as movie theaters and shopping malls would be included.<\/p>\n Because the measure would affect privately-owned venues, private business owners would bear the burden of cost to provide security if they chose not to allow patrons to carry weapons upon their premises.\u00a0 While it is within their rights to refuse to allow patrons to carry firearms on their premises, it seems unfair that they should be penalized by having to provide security at their own cost, possibly forcing some out of business.<\/p>\n The measure faces an uphill battle in the Democratically-controlled Colorado legislature.<\/p>\n The debate surrounding the posting of armed guards in public venues such as schools, shopping malls, and movie theaters continues at the national level as well.\u00a0 While Wayne LaPierre of the NRA says that schools with armed guards would be ‘The one thing that would keep people safe;’<\/a> anti-gun advocates state that less guns equals less shootings and less crime.\u00a0 How do we determine \u201cwhat works\u201d when it comes to preventing more mass shootings?<\/p>\n Paul Heroux, a State Representative-elect from Massachusetts who previously worked for a prison and a jail and has a Master\u2019s degree in Criminology from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master\u2019s degree in Public Administration from Harvard, says that both of these types of statements are \u201cpartisan,\u201d and \u201cnot backed up with good research about what works and what doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Heroux has written an article regarding the dangers of making policies based on what he calls \u201cjunk science and bad research\u201d entitled \u201cPreventing Mass Shootings:\u00a0 How Partisans Get \u2018What Works\u2019 Wrong.\u201d<\/a> In the article, Heroux points out that \u201cthings that have been proven to work don’t work all the time. A 100 percent success rate is not how something is defined as what works<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n He believes that \u201cuntil the advocates on both sides of an issue start using ‘what works’ properly and not for political gain, we won’t have good advocacy for public policy.\u201d\u00a0 And, he continues, \u201cThis is very dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n With both the president and a number of states rushing to legislate guns and gun owners\u2019 rights, the probability for ineffective policy becomes greater.\u00a0 \u201cAs awful as high profile examples of mass shootings are, it is important to remember that high profile events are high profile precisely because they are unusual and unlikely. \u00a0Making policy based on high profile events is a surefire way to overreact and make inefficient and, worse, ineffective policy. A high profile event is a good time to find out where a shortcoming of a policy or a failure of a policy might reside, but a high profile event is not necessarily what policy should target. \u00a0Doing so would result in the majority of cases being marginalized and a strategy designed around an unlikely event,\u201d says Heroux.<\/p>\n The president is adamant that he will push Congress to ban certain types of weapons, which will be in opposition and violation of the Second Amendment as well as creating policy based on \u201can unlikely event,\u201d as Paul Heroux describes.\u00a0 Although Americans are split on gun laws<\/a>, with many wanting tougher laws in hopes of preventing more mass shootings while being equally in favor of retaining our right to bear arms, we must not allow the \u201chigh-profile\u201d random acts of mentally deranged people to strip us of our rights.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Let\u2019s hope sanity prevails.<\/p>\n