Reply #6: cause-and-effect, correlation, my sister, my daughter ...

[iverglas]

"Gun Free" zones attract mentally deranged shooters.

Actually, places where people assemble, particularly places and people against which deranged individuals hold grudges, attract deranged shooters. Schools and churches and their attendees commonly fall into that category.

Most such individuals plan to die themselves in any event. I'm sure they prefer to kill themselves, but they're obviously aware of the chance of someone else killing them.

Of Canada's two most famous, Marc Lépine killed himself after killing 14 women engineering and injuring about as many other people, and Kimveer Gill killed himself after police interrupted his plans by shooting and injuring him before he could do more than kill one people and seriously injure some others.

The idea that such individuals will be deterred by the off chance that someone on the premises will have a firearm is rather silly.

I expect that individual churches would be able to opt out of any permission granted by legislation, and that many if not most would.