Guns or partitions is the choice...

Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of arms. - Aristotle

In the late sixties and early seventies, the question of cab drivers carrying guns, arose. After all, people were shooting at cab drivers, why shouldn’t cab drivers shoot back? The urban taxi regulators said “No way, cab drivers in Boston, NYC etc., are not allowed to carry weapons while cab driving.”

Thus, began the first experiment in "gun-free" zones.

If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun.

Dalai Lama – Seattle Times 2001

Taxi regulators in Boston and NY adopted a requirement for a device to be installed in all taxis. This was in response to the gun question. The regulators decided that they would try an experiment with a device that had never BEFORE been used for assault prevention. Automobile interior partitions were used in utility vans for cargo retention. They were used in limousines for privacy. They were used to keep frisked, disarmed, handcuffed prisoners from access to the front seat area of a police cruiser. But to keep people from shooting cab drivers, most were skeptical, with good reason. Without a partition, no gun is needed. With a partition... criminals find that a gun works fine, and is more frequently successful, with little to no threat of resistance from the driver.

"You should investigate something to see its benefit or harm, examine whether it is appropriate and suitable or not; then after that you may carry it out." - Caotang

Gun free zone taxis have cab drivers murdered. Cities where drivers are known to be possibly armed have little or no murder. An example would be; New Orleans has some armed cab drivers and no cab driver murder rate. That is very unusual for a city with the highest murder rate. New York and Boston have declared cabs to be gun free zones and use partitions... but have very high cab driver murder rates. Cab cannot wait for the police to come. 

We have investigated to see the benefit or harm, examined whether it is appropriate and suitable or not. We DO see which approach to driver survival... is more successful, yet NY and Boston still insist on the 'turtle' approach.

When only cops have guns, it’s called a “police state”. Claire Wolfe – libertarian author