Letter to Mall management
To the Westland Mall Management,
As a member of Ohioans's for concealed carry, and as a former police officer in Indiana, I read with great interest a CNN report that talked about a rapist who's been stalking a Wisconsin mall for 6
years. See this link:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Midwest/07/15/mall.rapist.ap/index.html
Here's an excerpt from that story that explains how he operated:
- "Prosecutors filed a complaint charging Perry with two of the sexual
assaults they attribute to the so-called mall rapist, who attacked female
mall workers in Madison in parking lots or as they worked alone in their
stores."
The new Ohio concealed carry law was put into effect for the express
purpose of giving citizens the right to protect themselves in situations
like this. If any of his victims had been armed, they may very well have
been spared the horror of being raped. You are all smart people or you
wouldn't be in the management positions you are in. Therefore, you can
probably figure out on your own that the only people your concealed carry
ban protects are the criminals themselves, because they're certainly not
going to pay any attention to your signs. Law abiding citizens like me who
have CCW permits will obey the signs and not bring my gun into your
mall. However, criminals are smart too, and there will certainly be
situations where they choose your mall to rob or rape people they encounter
in the parking lot because they know you have helped them greatly by making
sure anyone coming out of our mall isn't armed and are unable to defend
themselves. You aren't protecting anyone except the criminals with your
well-meaning but misguided policy.
I'm sure that like most malls you have your own security people. You may
even have cameras monitoring the parking lot. I also know from my
experience as a former police officer that like the police, the security
staff is rarely able to be there to prevent a crime from occurring. They
and the police are normally in the unfortunate position of having to
respond to the crimes after they're all over with. The hard reality is
that mall parking lots are ideal places for armed criminals to victimize
customers and employees as they walk to/from the mall building and their
vehicles. This CNN story is just the latest in a long string of examples
that prove this point. When you force law abiding citizens to leave their
guns behind in their cars, you leave them highly vulnerable to these
criminals.
Until you change your mall from a criminal protection zone to a victim
protection zone, I and my family will not risk being unable to defend
ourselves in your parking lot by shopping at any of your mall's
stores. There are plenty of other stores in the city that care enough
about their customers and employees that they don't put them in this kind
of a position. I urge you to take those discriminatory signs down and quit
making it so easy for criminals to victimize your customers and
employees. Thank you for considering my comments.
Gary Martin
Gahanna, OH
Commentary:
Although a growing number of mall managers have recognized the folly of disarming their patrons, the Do Not Patronize While Armed database still contains several malls across the state.
One of the most offensive is Prime Outlets Mall. Soon after employees at the Jeffersonville store were targeted by Ohio's own Retail Rapist, out-of-state management reacted by posting signs banning law-abiding citizens from protecting themselves, even in the parking lot:
- 4410 reads
