AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File

If there’s one near-universal data point in mass shootings, it’s that they take place in gun free zones. Not all of them, but enough that gun free zones should be a major point of discussion in this country. We should be trying to repeal them as it’s clear that they don’t dissuade mass shooters, only the law-abiding citizen who might well be armed otherwise.

Particularly vulnerable gun free zones are schools. Teachers and staff are required by law to be disarmed, knowing damn good and well that their workplace is a potential target for a maniac. They’re powerless to protect their lives.

That powerlessness might be why Rep. Thomas Massie has introduced a new bill to eliminate gun-free zones in schools.

Rep. Thomas Massie reintroduced a bill on Tuesday aimed at eliminating gun-free school zones across the United States.

Massie’s Safe Students Act, which has seven Republican co-sponsors, would repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act passed in 1990 and which makes it “unlawful for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone.”  Congress amended the original law after the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 1995.

The Kentucky lawmaker’s attempts to repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act have failed in the past two congressional sessions.

“Gun-free zones are ineffective and make our schools less safe. 98 percent of mass public shootings since 1950 have occurred in places where citizens are banned from having guns,” Massie said in a press release. “Banks, churches, sports stadiums, and many of my colleagues in Congress are protected with firearms. Yet children inside the classroom are too frequently left vulnerable.”

I like it.

I’d have liked it better two years ago when it had a chance in hell of passing, but I still like it.

Unfortunately, as I noted, it won’t go anywhere. It won’t be heard in committee, and likely won’t get a vote. It’s a symbolic gesture and little else. Worse, I think Massie knows it, too.

Not to say that it’s useless. It’s not. It’s clear evidence of House Republicans trying to address the issue of mass shootings; something anti-gunners claim they have no interest in. They don’t recognize that there could be a solution besides gun control, but Massie’s bill would probably do far, far more than any amount of gun control ever would.

After all, maniacs will find another weapon to use.

But if you make it possible for people to fight back, that changes things entirely.

Anti-gunners will claim that no mass shooting has been stopped by an armed citizen, that the “good guy with a gun” is a myth. Do you know why they say that? Because when an armed citizen is present, it almost never has a chance to reach the status of a mass shooting. The good guy puts the bad guy down before it ever gets there.

So yeah, let’s repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act. Let’s end this stupidity.

It’s too bad that the powers that be in the House have their heads so far up their rectums they won’t even consider it. It’s also too bad that the GOP didn’t think to do this when they could have made it happen.