Gun-free zones don't offer security

Mall shootings and school shootings, the common thread between all of them is gun-free zones.

Apparently, the only people who follow this are the law-abiding. Mad men are not affected and are emboldened by gun-free zones.

Lane Bryant, Virginia Tech, now NIU, and other locations are free for all zones for mad men to shoot fish in the proverbial barrel.

Before there was Virginia Tech, there was another college campus in Virginia where a mad man tried to do evil deeds. He was stopped by a law-abiding citizen with a gun.

In Colorado recently, a woman with concealed carry was able to save members of her congregation and stop a gunman armed to the teeth.

The media glossed over the fact that a citizen -- moreover, a woman with a concealed carry permit -- put down the perpetrator.

The dirty little secret is that those places with the strictest gun control laws are also the most dangerous.

Gun-free zones are a liberal utopian feel-good measure that are not gun free and are not safe.

If you believe that there is good and evil in the world, one should not have to worry about good people with the tools of freedom and protection.

Illinois is only one of two states left in the union without concealed carry and those large cities such as Washington D.C., New York and Chicago have proven that strict measures do not ensure safety -- only disarmament of good people.

Blood in the streets shouts from those against concealed carry have not come to fruition and the opposite has occurred.

Reason, not emotion, must be used to enact real proven methods to protect the citizenry at large.

Enact a concealed carry law in Illinois. Now. It is time to keep up with the rest of the union.

Steven Zahareas

Schaumburg