3 banned from Greenwood Park Mall for carrying guns

It wasn’t all that long ago when Greenwood Park Mall was a huge topic here. More specifically, the heroic actions of a law-abiding, armed citizen who put an end to a mass shooting in progress with some really top-notch shooting.

However, in the wake of that incident, some lashed out. You see, the mall doesn’t actually allow people to carry guns.

In fact, three people were just banned from the mall for a year because they were carrying.

Three people have been banned for one year from the Greenwood Park Mall after police say they were caught carrying guns inside the mall.

The incident happened Saturday in the mall’s food court. Police said all three people were carrying guns. One of the people was wearing a backpack and he had a high-capacity magazine in it along with a gun.

While they were standing in line to order food, the magazine fell and hit the floor. When the magazine hit the floor, bullets fell out.

This caused some chaos, police said. A woman who saw what happened kicked the magazine across the floor and the man who dropped the magazine scrambled to grab it, police said.

The man then ran to the women’s bathroom and shoved the ammunition into his backpack.

Police were called to the scene and interviewed all three people, none of whom were prior felons.

The Greenwood Police Department said all three people were lawfully carrying guns under Indiana law and “at no time did the individuals display a weapon and no threats were made.”

Now, Elisjsha Dicken carried a gun in the mall, used it to stop a mass shooting, and was not banned, so I can kind of understand why these three might have assumed they could carry too, regardless of what signs might be up.

And, from a legal standpoint, they can.

You see, this incident really helps to undermine some of the narrative we saw after Dicken ended that mass shooting. Some, such as Shannon Watts, tried to claim Dicken was carrying illegally, that he was a criminal simply by being armed.

Yet here, we see none of these three arrested. They didn’t have the benefit of having stopped a mass shooting at the mall, either. Had this actually been illegal, they would have.

No, they were just banned from the mall.

And understand, that’s the mall’s right. It’s their property and they’re entitled to decide who can and cannot use their facility. Yes, that also means they can deny people exercising their gun rights there, much as they can also deny someone their right to free speech on their property.

That doesn’t make it right, though.

After all, Greenwood Park Mall officials should well have learned the benefit of armed citizens. Three people were killed in July but who knows how many more might have been killed had Dicken not been there and been armed?

Further, their decision not to ban Dicken from the mall likely sent mixed signals. Many likely figured ownership approved of armed citizens after that event.

Clearly, though, they didn’t.

So now folks in the area have a choice. They can either leave their guns at home, carry and hope no one notices, or just not go to the mall.

My guess is most will do one of the latter two.