Monday, April 8, 2013

Gun-Free Zones App

There's a good side and a bad side to this:
LARGEST DATABASE OF GUN FREE ZONES ANNOUNCED
Cell Phone App Marks Which Stores Are Firearm Friendly and Which Are Gun Free
April 8, 2013 – GunFreeZoneApp.com, a mobile phone app company, today announced that over 250,000 locations in all 50 states are now marked as either firearm friendly or gun free zones.  Stores, churches, schools, theaters, malls, and other public places have been tagged by users of the app throughout the United States in the largest effort in history to mark the location of gun free zones.  The GunFreeZone phone app has collected its enormous crowd-sourced database in less than 8 weeks into the largest listing of gun free zones and firearm friendly areas ever assembled.
“I am really impressed with how quickly this has taken off.  To reach a quarter million locations marked in less than 2 months shows how strongly people feel about the gun issue,” said John Peden, founder of the company.  “People are obviously very passionate on both sides of the issue and this app helps them express that passion in a useful way,” Peden added.
The good side is that if you are in a place where businesses have the "rob me" signs out, this app lets you figure out who really wants your business, and who doesn't.  That's cool.  Some years ago I was traveling through Pennsylvania on a research trip, and one restaurant had a "no guns" sign, so I went across the street a pizza place that did not.  Why would I give business to someone who is advertising that he only wants people to come in who are either criminals, victims, or illiterates?

But I can also see this app perhaps being used by a mass murderer who is looking for targets.

More bad news from that press release:
Presently, there are over 27,000 locations marked as firearm friendly and over 225,000 marked as gun free.
I would not have guessed that this many businesses cater to sheep.

4 comments:

  1. A lot of the ones that are marked as gun free may not actually be legally gun-free. In Texas, for example, a very specific sign is required before it's actually illegal for a concealed handgun licensee to carry on that property. The more common icon of a gun with a circle/slash is legally meaningless. I figure that the stores with the icon just want to reassure the sheep without actually prohibiting concealed carry.

    The survey probably marked these stores in Texas as gun free, but, legally, they're not. I wouldn't call them firearm-friendly, either, but they're definitely not gun-free.

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  2. " I would not have guessed that this many businesses cater to sheep."

    Clayton, you do not really believe that sheep are in the minority do you?

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  3. I think that the number of gun friendly is also underestimated because you don't have to post anything to specifically allow guns.

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  4. If I'm there, it's not a gun free zone.

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