A vital lesson learned (but at such terrible cost)? Never mind*

As has been pointed out before (well, at least in a couple places), the Westroads Mall mandated that customers and employees be defenseless in the face of psychopaths like the one who struck Wednesday. The ineffable evil of denying people the most fundamental right in all of nature, that of self-defense, claimed yet another rich harvest of victims.

Interestingly, though, a rumor started floating around Thursday about a possible change in the air. I first encountered this rumor at Snowflakes in Hell, who in turn got it at The Michael Bane Blog:

On the Nebraska mall shooting, I'm getting unsubstantiated reports that the mall has removed the "No Guns" signs from their little gun-free zone paradise, lest someone take a picture of them.

Now, an Omaha area gun rights blog (Joe's Crabby Shack) would seem to have provided some substantiation.

Well, Freedom Fiends, I just got back from Westroads and guess what I didn't find?

The rules of conduct signs were gone, leaving only marred paint and screw holes behind.

He then goes on to document several other places in the mall that had recently (certainly through Wednesday, anyway) had such signs, but do no longer.

As I understand the Nebraska concealed carry law, any business has the power to prohibit guns, and that prohibition carries the force of law. However, that policy has to be displayed (even the anti-defense bureaucrats seem to understand that people cannot be expected to know the rules by some kind of telepathy). In other words: no sign, no "gun-free zone."

Is this a true reversal of company policy, a tragically belated realization that defenselessness kills? Or is it a cynical attempt to try to sweep the old, fatal policy under the rug (meaning, possibly, that the signs will go back up when the massacre slips from the front page)? Unfortunately, there seems to be some indication of the latter possibility, as Joe determined by noting that Westroad's "sister mall," across town, and under the same management, still has the signs. It is, I suppose, too early to tell.

I hope defense-minded residents of the Omaha area let mall management know (and Oak View, too) that those signs need to stay gone.

Perhaps mall management needs to study this:

(from CNS News)

War on Guns has more, and makes the excellent point (a point that I had missed, somehow) that by "disappearing" the signs, perhaps mall management is trying to escape civil liability.

*UPDATE (12/20/2007): Westroads Mall has once again been mandated a "Defenseless Victim Zone"