Bans on Carrying Within One Thousand Feet of a School
The federal Gun-Free School Zones Act bans gun possession, except on private property, within one thousand feet of any school.[345] The Act exempts possession by those with a state gun license,[346] but many states allow unlicensed open carry,[347] Alaska and Vermont allow unlicensed concealed carry,[348] many states don’t give someone an option to get a gun possession license, and many more don’t allow 18-to-20-year-olds to get concealed carry licenses.[349] In these states, gun carrying on public streets and sidewalks within one thousand feet of a school is effectively barred by federal law.[350]
California and Wisconsin laws likewise prohibit open carrying within one thousand feet of a school, even when the gun is unloaded.[351] (Outside those zones, California law generally allows unloaded open carry,[352] and Wisconsin law generally allows even loaded open carry.[353]) Louisiana law in effect prohibits carrying by 18-to-20-year-olds within one thousand feet of a school or university, except in a car, and provides that “[l]ack of knowledge that the prohibited act occurred . . . within one thousand feet of school property shall not be a defense.”[354] In Aurora (Illinois), carrying of firearms, stun guns, and even pepper spray is banned within one thousand feet of a school or university.[355]
These school zone statutes substantially burden people’s ability to defend themselves. Many people live and work within one thousand feet of schools, and may need to defend themselves in that area even if they never set foot on school property. I know of no longstanding tradition of treating several blocks around a school as a “sensitive place[ ]” in which people are stripped of their right to keep and bear arms in self-defense, including at night when selfdefense is most necessary and school is not even in session. And if a reducing danger argument is inadequate to justify gun bans on public streets generally (see Part II.C.1), it’s hard to see how it would be adequate to justify gun bans on public streets within several blocks of a school.[Footnotes in the original]
