Ed Pawlowski wrote:

Most commercial establishments have nothing to gain, and much to
lose (from a legal / liability / insurance standpoint) to NOT
make / announce that their property is a "gun-free" zone.

Rarely have I seen such an announcement in any business.

Do some / many / most / all public schools in the US have signage
declaring they are a gun-free zone?

We know that many public-sector facilities (schools, libraries,
gov't offices, court buildings, DMV, airports, etc)
are probably gun-free zones even if they are not signed as such.

Have you ever been to one of those places? I've seen some rather
strong armament at airports, especially in Europe. Courts and many
government buildings have armed guards.

I wasn't counting any "duly-deputized" members of the law-enforcement
community, nor anyone hired as armed security in those places (airports,
courts and gov't buildings).

We are talking about civilians carrying personal firearms in public in
this thread.

The shooter made no attempt to hook into any social networks
or leave behind anything that would give the world a statement
or make him famous.

You think killing 26 people they would not put his name in the
paper?

He wasn't even carrying his own ID at the time.

Did he kill those kids because he wanted to be famous (or infamous) ?

Or did he kill them *regardless* the media coverage that would result?

I know a lot of right-wing AM-radio talking heads have put forward the
idea that the liberal media is facilitating and fostering these
mass-murders because their coverage of the event is showing the next
mass-murderer how he can be famous, but I don't buy that argument, and
I'm sure a lot of other sane, rational people don't either.

Clinically-sane, rational people (which, by the way, includes right-wing
AM-radio talking heads) are be definition incapable to know what drives
insane, irrational people to do what they do. We are applying our own
idea of why we might want to commit such acts (mass murder = become
famous).

He did not have to leave a Facebook message to get notoriety.

As I said above, we can't even pretend to know why he killed those
kids. It's a foregone conclusion that when something shocking and
disturbing happens, that the media is going to report it.

If he was driven by a voice in his head that told him to kill those kids
- do you think he gave any consideration to this so-called "fame" that
you keep talking about?

The solution to this problem lies in the product itself - not in
laws that govern who can sell them or who can obtain them, nor
in laws that govern how consumers handle them.

That is part of the solution. We also have to find what causes
this type of behavior. Fifty years ago no one was shooting up
schools that I'm aware of.

Fifty (even 10 or 20) years ago, divorced single women with kids also
probably didn't own an arsenal of guns like this woman did.

I'm sure there were troubled boys 50 years ago. The difference being
their moms pantry didn't double as an armory.