Gun-Free Zones Fuel Surge in Gun Thefts

Gun-free zones are doing more harm than good, according to the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), which is sounding the alarm over a new report on gun thefts from parked vehicles.

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The Council on Criminal Justice recently published findings showing a 31% increase in firearms stolen from cars between 2018 and 2022. But CCRKBA says the report misses a critical cause: laws that force legal gun owners to disarm before entering “sensitive places.”

“While the report raises alarms about a 31 percent increase of gun thefts from vehicles,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “it fails to mention a major reason people must leave their firearms in their cars, and that’s the proliferation of ‘gun-free zones’ and ‘sensitive areas,’ all promoted by the same social justice extremists who complain about guns falling into the wrong hands.”

Gottlieb argues that a legally-owned firearm is safest when it’s with its owner, not locked in a car, where it’s vulnerable to theft. Yet in many states, citizens are forced to disarm to enter courthouses, churches, restaurants, and even shopping centers.

“Armed private citizens should never be expected to leave their firearms just to have lunch, attend a meeting or public hearing, handle personal business in a government building, enter churches, synagogues or mosques, or merely to go shopping at a mall or market,” he said.

The irony, CCRKBA notes, is that many mass shootings occur in these very “gun-free zones”—places where law-abiding citizens have been disarmed by law, while criminals face no such constraints.

Gottlieb cited real-world examples, including the Greenwood Park Mall shooting in Indiana, where an armed civilian fatally shot a mass shooter just moments after the attack began. Similar interventions have occurred in places of worship in Texas and Michigan, where armed congregants stopped would-be killers.

“Establishing laws that disarm honest citizens while creating risk-free environments for criminals and crazy people is not simply ineffective,” Gottlieb said. “It’s insane.”

As the holiday season approaches—and with it, a spike in thefts from vehicles in mall and office parking lots—Gottlieb warns that these disarmament policies not only endanger the public but also create easy targets for thieves.

His message to lawmakers? If you want fewer gun thefts, stop forcing law-abiding citizens to leave them in parked cars. And, if you want safer public spaces, let good people carry.

“If you want to keep guns out of the wrong hands, then allow those guns to be in the right hands,” Gottlieb concluded.

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