Neighbor News
Park View At Ellicott City Forbidding Firearms in apartments
Unknowingly maybe, but still intentionally putting your residents at risk of harm. That's how I look at it.
When the landlord calls their property now a ‘gun-free zone’ or a ‘weapon-free zone.’ In my mind, they’ve done exactly what the schools have done when you call a school a gun-free zone. You’ve just opened it up to the crazy people and you’ve said, ‘Hey, nobody here has weapons. Come over here and break in. Come over here and cause havoc to our property because no one is allowed to have weapons here and cannot defend themselves. Come in and steal from them, rob them, do whatever you want to do with them.’ I would say that by doing that, you’ve now opened yourself up to say you called yourself a gun-free zone, when it is just not true. Even if a landlord has a prohibition for tenants regarding guns or ammo, it’s not going to stop someone from having weapons if they want them in their apartment unit. So why have the rule at all? Why take on extra liability and extra problems when we know that possessing a weapon in one’s apartment unit or home is practically unenforceable? A tenant should be able to possess a firearm if they want one, but if the tenant goes around bragging about it, or showing it off, that tenant needs to go.
