Mayors Against Illegal Guns gets supposed list of shootings where guns were allowed all wrong

I have previously noted that there were two multiple victim public shootings that weren't in gun-free zones.  Those were the Gabrielle Giffords shooting and the Carson City, NV IHOP shootings, though I had originally missed the IHOP case because it didn't meet the four-victim threshold until a wounded victim died later.

In response to my statements, Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) has put together a list of their own cases where they claim that more shootings have occurred where guns are allowed.  The group's chairman, John Feinblatt, had a relatively long 255 letter in the Wall Street Journal publicizing this report.   What should be very clear to anyone who has worked in this area is that you can't simply look at a few news stories to determine whether an attack has occurred in a gun-free zone.  Indeed, as I have complained many times, the media virtually always refuses to mention whether the attack occurred in a gun-free zone (many of my op-eds have also made this point).  For those who follow this blog, it should be fairly clear that others and I do a lot of work in obtaining information about different attacks.  This includes calling the businesses or other facilities involved.  But many times those organizations are uncooperative and in those cases I have spent a lot of time contacting individuals in the area of the attack and asking them if they can provide pictures or other information on the facilities.  Dozens of individuals around the country can attest to me bothering them over the years after these incidents.

Unfortunately, Mayors Against Illegal Guns did not do this work, and they have also inaccurately stated, ignored, or simply missed material that is readily available in news stories.  Let me go through the cases in the MAIG report.

Geneva County, AL, 3/10/09: The shooter killed ten, including four members of his family, before killing himself. 

Shooter Name: Michael Kenneth McLendon, 28 

Gun details: Bushmaster AR-15, SKS Rifle, Shotgun, and .38 Pistol 

Ammo details: Police recovered additional ammunition from his vehicle after the shooting. Gun acquired: Unknown. 

Prohibiting criteria: The shooter had no criminal record and there is no indication he was prohibited from owning a gun. 

Not a gun-free zone: It was lawful to carry a firearm in the public intersection and gas station where two of the individuals were shot.

Nine people were killed by McLendon. In the first shooting in a house on Pullum Street, five people were killed.  There was also a second shooting in another home that left two people dead.  Neither were public places.  It is true that two individuals were killed in separate public places as McLendon was driving along, but that is not a multiple victim public shooting in which at least four are killed in a public place.  However, MAIG’s report implies that all these shootings occurred in a public places.

Lakewood, WA, 11/29/09: The shooter killed four police officers in a Tacoma Coffee shop, eluding police for two days before being killed as he fled.
Shooter Name: Maurice Clemmons, 37
Gun details: When he was killed, he was in possession of the handgun of one of the officers he had killed.
Ammo details: Unknown
Gun acquired: Unknown
Prohibiting criteria: The shooter was prohibited from purchasing a firearm, having been charged with at least 13 felonies across two states. He had posted bail for raping a child just six days before the attack.
Not a gun-free zone: The police officers were armed at the time of the shooting.

I haven't defined gun-free zones in terms of whether police were allowed to carry guns, but whether private citizens are able to readily obtain concealed handguns for their protection.  What is important is that the coffee shop was posted to prevent concealed carry permit holders from carrying.  Presumably MAIG understood this point and that is the reason why they focused on police officers being able to carry in this venue.  Obviously, however, on-duty police can carry any place.  The problem for uniformed police is that they provide an easily identifiable target and it is easy to take them out.  Possibly if the attacker had to worry about permit holders who he could not identify, it would have dissuaded him from attacking.  While I had checked when this event originally occurred, I reconfirmed this information with Dave Workman who lived nearby via email on January 8, 2013.  

Carthage, NC, 3/29/09: The shooter opened fire at a nursing home where his estranged wife worked, killing eight and injuring three before he was shot and arrested by a police officer.
Shooter Name: Robert Stewart, 45
Gun details: .357 Magnum handgun and Winchester 1300 shotgun
Ammo details: Unknown
Gun acquired: The guns were acquired legally from a local sporting good store.
Prohibiting criteria: There is no indication the Stewart was prohibited from owning a gun.
Not a gun-free zone: We could find no indication that the property-owner forbid carrying of firearms on their property.

This facility informed me in April 2009 that they did not allow guns in the facility for either the people living there or the staff.  I called up asking what their policies had been before the attack.

Boston, MA, 09/28/10: The shooter killed four and wounded one during a drug-related robbery.
Shooter Name: Edward Washington, 33, and Dwayne Moore, 35, were both charged in the killings. Washington was acquitted. In Moore’s first trial, the jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of his guilt, but he was later convicted in a retrial.
Gun details: 40-caliber Iberia handgun and 9mm Cobray semiautomatic. The Cobray has not been recovered, but the weapon was identified based on recovered bullets and shell casings.
Ammo details: 14 rounds fired
Gun acquired: Unknown
Prohibiting criteria: Unknown
Not a gun free zone: A person with a Massachusetts Class A license could lawfully carry a firearm in this area. 

Buffalo, NY, 8/14/10: The shooter opened fire on a group of people outside a bar, killing four and wounding four others.
Shooter Name: Riccardo McCray, 24
Gun details: Unknown
Ammo details: Unknown
Gun acquired: Unknown
Prohibiting criteria: McCray had been arrested earlier that year on felony drug charges and the previous year for having a loaded rifle in his car. If he was found guilty of either crime, he would have been prohibited from possessing firearms.
Not a gun-free zone: We could find no indication that it was unlawful to carry a firearm in the area.

Both cities either forbid or make it incredibly difficult for law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns for protection.  In Boston it is so bad that even off-duty and retired police are regularly denied unrestricted license to carry permits.

Oak Creek, WI, 8/5/12: The shooter killed six people at a Sikh temple and injured three others, including a responding police officer, before killing himself.
Shooter Name: Wade Michael Page, 40
Gun details: 9mm semiautomatic handgun
Ammo details: Page reportedly bought three 19-round magazines when he purchased the gun.
Gun acquired: Page acquired the gun at a local gun shop a week before the shooting.
Prohibiting criteria: Page was involved with the white supremacist movement but he does not appear to have been prohibited from purchasing a gun. Federal officials investigated Page’s ties to supremacist groups more than once prior to the shooting, but did not collect enough evidence to open an investigation.

From FoxNews.com: “No guns [were] allowed in the temple,” Kulbir Singh, an attendee of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, told FoxNews.com. “Everyone knows that it’s not allowed, anywhere in the temple.” 

Norcross, GA, 2/22/12: The shooter returned to a Korean spa from which he'd been kicked out after an altercation, where he shot and killed two of his sisters and their husbands before committing suicide.
Shooter Name: Jeong Soo Paek, 59
Gun details: .45 caliber handgun
Ammo details: Unknown
Gun acquired: Police reported that he acquired the gun legally.
Prohibiting criteria: Paek does not appear to have been prohibited, although he had allegedly served two months in jail for assaulting his sister six years earlier.
Not a gun-free zone: We could find no indication that the property owner forbade possession of a firearm on their property.

In one of the more difficult conversations that I have had, I spoke with someone at the spa after the attack and they indicated that they were sure that neither the sisters nor their husbands had guns at the spa and that the killer who was the brother of the women knew that was the case.  I was told that the killer knew "nobody there had a gun."  While I don't know what the official policy at the spa was because the person that I was talking to was upset and didn't want to continue the conversation, the important thing was that the killer knew that there were no guns for people to defend themselves there.  This was a small family owned establishment so it is most likely that this was the official policy of the family.  Note that they have the wrong date on this event.  The event actually occurred on February 20, 2012.  Note also that the business has since closed.

Mount Airy, NC, 11/01/09: The shooter killed four people outside a television store before eventually surrendering to the police.  

Shooter Name: Marcos Chavez Gonzalez, 29  

Gun details: Assault rifle. 

Ammo details: Unknown 

Gun acquired: Unknown  

Prohibiting criteria: The shooter was a prohibited purchaser, having been convicted of kidnapping a minor in 2002.  

Not a gun-free zone: It was lawful to carry a firearm in the area of the shooting.

Indications are that the attack was part of gang related crime.  As I have explained before, that would exclude it from the cases that Bill Landes and I examined.

Just in case MAIG decided to rewrite their report, I have saved a pdf copy of it available here.  Possibly MAIG might have been more successful in their task if they had bothered to look up how my past research with Bill Landes has defined these gun-free zones is available here.

There are a few other cases that I have collected that I will link to here.

The Azana Salon & Spa shooting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (November, 2012).
Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting (July, 2012).
Another shooting in a another gun free zone: Binghamton, NY (April, 2009).
Trolley Square Mall in Utah (February, 2007).
Omaha, Nebraska mall shooting (December 2007).
I have about 327 postings on gun-free zones available here.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, the MAIG "report" has gotten coverage without those who have looked at it doing any additional research.  Here is something from the MinnPost by Susan Perry and the MinnPost kindly puts up the report on their site.