Aren't 'Gun Free Zones' technically un-Constitutional? Banning lawful carry of concealed firearms from Public Places of persons that are duelly afirmed by the State through due process and licensure seems illegal. Specifically if it was a place built using public funds (economic developement?) therefore public property.

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To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a mass killing targeting people shopping online.

Malls aren't public places. They are private property and you have zero right to be there at all, only visiting at the sufferance of the owner. I'd rather not go mucking with that principle.

The contribution of public funds to the development of the property would have to explicitly spell out any terms of public ownership or conditions regarding not prohibiting guns.

Personally, I'd rather not give the government any extra excuses to stick their fingers in everyone's pies and start dictating extra terms to property owners on the basis of "you didn't build that". The government will always have some angle by which they can claim to have contributed to making any development possible and I don't trust them to stick to just using that power in ways I approve of.

Going down that road would basically destroy the fourth amendment.

Agreed. But by prohibiting the primary means of self defense via firearms, that leaves that mall liable for the safety of its patrons while doing business.
I agree that mucking with property rights leaves me queasy as well.
Good point.
So far all the gun laws and gun free zones have been less than useless feelgoodism.
The state wont protect you.
Your neighbor wont protect you.
You have to protect yourself.



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Is it common for victims/survivors (obviously not dead victims) of such shootings to sue the owner of the property for failing to protect them in the owner-imposed gun free zone?

Because I know if I were in such an otherwise legal-to-carry place that's placarded as a gun free zone, and someone shot it up, I'd be suing the s___ out of the property owner for denying me the ability to protect myself, and failing to do it for me.

We lobbied the local mall and Walmart and took our business elsewhere until the stickers and signs came down. You don't have to go there. Spend your money where you are welcome. That's a problem in small towns where store selection is sparse but especially there business missed will be business noticed. Follow up your boycott with a short but well reasoned letter to the owner/management. It takes time but it can work.

That's the problem in the town I just moved to. I gotta drive at least 20mi to find another Walmart (not unreasonable, but 40miles of gas defeats the purpose of going to Walmart in the first place) and 100mi to find another mall. Neither retailer in this town is posted as gun-free afaik, and I've carried in both. I'm just noting that when you need a pair of jeans or shoes, and both Wally World and the mall are posted, and those are the only places to buy such items, you're kinda hosed.

So IF those places got posted, and I need to purchase something, if someone shoots the place up, can I go all litigious on their ass?

Panhead Bill may be able to enlighten us on this but I think current legal thought is that no one HAS to go/forced you to go into the posted store so you enter knowing the risk, assuming the risk, whatever. I very well may be wrong but I don't think so. I heard that a while back but I can't recall where

Ok - here goes my attempt at a primer on premises liability (generally speaking, since many states will vary slightly) -

Just because you are injured on my property doesn't automatically mean I am liable for your injuries. There are usually only 2 reasons that I would be liable  - (1) I actually created the dangerous condition leading to the injury, or (2) I reasonably should have known about the dangerous condition and failed to correct it in a reasonable amount of time. There are a lot of other legal minutiae about whether you're an invitee, a guest, a licensee, etc that change the property owner's standard of care - BUT under most jurisdictions a criminal act is considered an intervening force that could relieve the property owner of liability.

In some rare circumstances though, when a criminal act is foreseeable, when the property owner has some duty to protect the people on his property, and the property owner fails to take reasonable precautions, there might be some liability. As incidents like these shootings happen more and more frequently, it is becoming more foreseeable that such a criminal act could happen. Although courts are hesitant, as a matter of policy, to place responsibility on the landowner for third party criminal acts, I wouldn't be surprised to see successful lawsuits in the future - at least against private landowners barring firearms, such as malls, in areas where concealed carry would otherwise be lawful. Schools, on the other hand - I doubt it.

Bill

(I guess this is where I should throw in a disclaimer that this should not be construed as legal advice, blah, blah, blah).