We know that gun-free zones can work to prevent gun crimes… so long as nearly impenetrable fortresses manned by armed guards surround them.

That’s why so few inmates are killed with guns by other inmates in Federal prisons.

Of course, the lack of gun-related deaths in prisons doesn’t mean that crime overall is reduced in the “gun--free” zone but that doesn’t matter because the whole concept of “gun-free” zones is an exercise in symbolism over substance.

Think about it: rapes are often perpetrated using brute force or drugs but would anyone think posting signs declaring pickup bars to be “no-rapist zones” or “no-date rape drug zones” would reduce rapes?

Liberal “gun-free zones” are based on the voluntary compliance of the very people who are about to commit heinous crimes. In the real world, people about to murder strangers are not too likely to adhere to gun-control laws of any sort.

The only people who are forced to be gun-free in “gun-free” zones are the security guards.

The people who voluntarily respect “gun-free” zones are precisely the people who would never criminally use a gun.

The result is just as in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king so too in a “gun-free” zone the man with the gun literally calls the shots.

In the liberal’s universe apparently the main cause of gun deaths are good people who just happen to carry around a gun and then use it based on a spur of the moment decision. But that didn’t even happen that often in the Wild West of legend. Further even a cursory inspection of all of the mass killings in the history of the U.S. show that they were premeditated; the killer knew what he was going to do long before he crossed the boundary of a “gun-free” zone.

The reality is that “gun free” zones aren’t generally meaningfully enforced; even the “gun-free” theatres that inspect bags for guns don’t frisk patrons to ensure that they’re not carrying a gun. Further, it’s unclear just what some unarmed teenage employee could do if they were to find a gun in the backpack of someone who was planning on killing everyone in sight. The truth is that “gun-free” zones depend entirely on voluntary compliance.

Only liberals who blame violence on social conditions rather than evil people would think that the sort of person who’s going to shoot a bunch of innocent strangers would be so civic minded as to not walk into a “gun-free” zone with a gun.

Liberals who endorse “gun-free” zones are effectively saying that the primary cause of gun-related deaths is good people spontaneously going postal.

The reality, of course, is that it’s insane and/or evil people who are the cause of gun crimes.

What we need are “criminal/lunatic free” zones. Interestingly enough America used to be one huge “criminal/lunatic free” zone.

Until liberals on the Supreme Court upended the American justice system, criminals were put in jail, not allowed to wander free based on technicalities. While the system wasn’t perfect it did tend to put the bad guys in jail where they were unable to hurt innocent citizens.

Until liberals decided it was unjust to force insane people into treatment, violence-prone lunatics who commit almost all of our non-terrorist mass killings were put into psychiatric wards and not allowed to go to schools and movie theaters to kill people. It’s no accident that the increase in mass killings in the U.S. is correlated with laws that made it much harder to involuntarily commit insane people; the Sandy Hook shooter’s mother had been trying to get him involuntarily committed for months.

The whole concept of a “gun-free” zone is based on the liberal belief that no one -- other than conservatives -- is really evil. Liberals blame society, not criminals for crime, and so they are forced to use symbolism not substance to address the consequences of being soft on criminals and the insane.

Just as liberals push for higher minimum wages to offset the impact of liberal endorsed illegal immigration, they push for “gun-control” and “gun-free” zones to offset the impact of liberal policies that put lunatics and criminals on the streets where they can kill people.

Neither policy actually does anything to address the problem -- higher minimum wages drives more people out of jobs and “gun-free” zones do nothing to prevent gun crimes -- but they serve as band-aids for the consciences of liberals who cling to their beliefs that illegals are good for the country and that people don’t kill people, guns do.

Liberals are emotionally invested in gun control, in general, either because they are authoritarians who honestly fear an armed populace or because they think that guns, not people, are the problem.

But in a country where hundreds of tons of cocaine are illegally imported every year does any sane person think that criminals won’t be able to get guns even if we removed every gun from the country?

In the end, liberals push for symbolic “gun-free” zones reveals their inability to recognize that it’s evil and/or insane people who are killers not guns. That isn’t surprising since a core liberal belief is that most people should not be held responsible for their actions.

After all, liberals support a mother's right to kill her unborn daughter rather than accept responsibility for the results of a consensual act and liberals believe that the poor cannot be expected to work their way out of poverty by exercising responsibility and not dropping out of school, not using drugs, and not having sex when they’re not married.

If we want to stop mass murders, the answer is not symbolism but substance; get the criminally insane off the streets and into treatment programs. It’s time to end liberals assuaging their consciences with policies that put innocent people at risk.

You can read more of tom’s rants at his blog, Conversations about the obvious and feel free to follow him on Twitter