The city of Detroit is…unique.

I mean, when the makers of the first Robocop movie needed a dystopian version of Detroit, they used Detroit. Doesn’t that really just tell you everything you need to know?

The truth is obviously a bit more nuanced than that, but the Motor City has its problems. It seems that city officials think they’ve got an idea to address at least some aspect of those issues.

There is a push to make the city of Detroit a gun-free zone and it is facing some backlash, Gun rights advocates say establishing gun-free zones in parts of downtown would be a big mistake.

A violent weekend earlier last month is what sparked the gun-free zone idea, which has been spearheaded by Councilwoman Mary Waters. In recent years during warmer weather, violence has ramped up,[sic]

The night of April 12th four people were shot and one person killed – that death being popular security guard Daryll Straughter, 48.

So, they want to make the city a gun-free zone?

It seems that the focus is primarily to make downtown Detroit a gun-free zone, not the entire city–though I suspect some might want to, despite the Bruen decision saying that wasn’t going to be found constitutional.

Yet gun rights advocates bring up a pretty good point in this discussion.

Activist Scott Boman also attended the protest.

“The fact of the matter is, that criminals do not care about the law,” he said. “And if we set up checkpoints on public streets that’s another thing. Now we’re talking about search and seizure rights.”

He’s absolutely correct, and let’s be real here. There’s absolutely no way Detroit is going to be able to manage foot and vehicle traffic into the downtown area to such a degree they can keep guns out of it. It’s just not physically possible.

Any attempt to do so, though, would be a PR nightmare, too.

Imagine seeing everyone having to go through a checkpoint just to access things like city hall or any tourist attractions there. How long before that starts sending a signal that Detroit is a police state?

Meanwhile, criminals will still figure out a way to get a gun through that.

Gun-free zones sound great until you realize that the only people who will obey those rules are the law-abiding people you don’t have to worry about in the first place.

Detroit has problems. That’s not really in doubt, and the shooting referred to above is just one example of those problems.

However, it would be nice to see a city recognize that the issue here isn’t the gun, but the people who seem to believe that shooting up their communities somehow makes them tough or whatever. The issue, as always, isn’t that guns exist but that some people think violence is the answer to everything.

Gun-free zone signs and metal detectors in a few places won’t stop that. It won’t change the underlying culture that leads to these kinds of incidents. It just turns our communities into dystopian nightmares.

In fact, it’ll make Robocop’s dystopian Detroit look downright optimistic.