Should We Ban Super-High-Capacity Magazines?
Well, I always feel as if I need to point out that I'm a gun-owner and defender of the Second Amendment who is torn about several types of gun control...
Today's question: should we ban super-high-capacity (e.g. 100 round) magazines?
Pete Mack points us to this in comments: Ron Johnson (R-WI) arguing that we shouldn't, because, hey, there are already tons of 30-round mags out there which could have done just as much damage... (A strange argument, that... Perhaps that means we should ban 30-round mags, too. And: 70 additional rounds don't make a difference? Well then, I guess 20 extra don't make a difference. So maybe we should only allow 10-round magazines? [edit: that is, if more rounds don't make a difference, why shouldn't gun owners be satisfied with 10 rounds? or 5? Or 1?])
One reason I advocate firearm ownership is because I think the populace should be able to defend itself against the government if necessary. You may not agree with that position, but that's a different discussion we can have at a different time. But that's a premise to which I'll help myself here and now.
On that assumption, we do have an interest in having relatively high-capacity magazines for, e.g., AR-15s. However it does seem that we can exercise a certain degree of judgment here. In the U.S. armed forces, M-16s and M-4s are typically issued (IIRC) with 30-round magazines. Supposing that's about right, might we not reasonably say that allowing 20-30 round magazines is good enough for the civilian population as well? And, so, that banning 30+-round magazines would be a reasonable thing to do?
There are some decent objections to such a proposal, but I don't think they're particularly powerful. I'll discuss them later, but, for now, I'll just leave that proposal on the table.
In brief:
If it's good enough for the military, it's good enough for civilians; 30 rounds are enough for combat purposes, and a ban on 30+-round magazines would not be unreasonable.
(Incidentally, I own several 20- and 30-round magazines for my own AR-15. Yes, they're fun to shoot. No, I don't think I really need them. But there it is, for full disclosure. I've never felt the urge to buy a bigger magazine, incidentally.)
Today's question: should we ban super-high-capacity (e.g. 100 round) magazines?
Pete Mack points us to this in comments: Ron Johnson (R-WI) arguing that we shouldn't, because, hey, there are already tons of 30-round mags out there which could have done just as much damage... (A strange argument, that... Perhaps that means we should ban 30-round mags, too. And: 70 additional rounds don't make a difference? Well then, I guess 20 extra don't make a difference. So maybe we should only allow 10-round magazines? [edit: that is, if more rounds don't make a difference, why shouldn't gun owners be satisfied with 10 rounds? or 5? Or 1?])
One reason I advocate firearm ownership is because I think the populace should be able to defend itself against the government if necessary. You may not agree with that position, but that's a different discussion we can have at a different time. But that's a premise to which I'll help myself here and now.
On that assumption, we do have an interest in having relatively high-capacity magazines for, e.g., AR-15s. However it does seem that we can exercise a certain degree of judgment here. In the U.S. armed forces, M-16s and M-4s are typically issued (IIRC) with 30-round magazines. Supposing that's about right, might we not reasonably say that allowing 20-30 round magazines is good enough for the civilian population as well? And, so, that banning 30+-round magazines would be a reasonable thing to do?
There are some decent objections to such a proposal, but I don't think they're particularly powerful. I'll discuss them later, but, for now, I'll just leave that proposal on the table.
In brief:
If it's good enough for the military, it's good enough for civilians; 30 rounds are enough for combat purposes, and a ban on 30+-round magazines would not be unreasonable.
(Incidentally, I own several 20- and 30-round magazines for my own AR-15. Yes, they're fun to shoot. No, I don't think I really need them. But there it is, for full disclosure. I've never felt the urge to buy a bigger magazine, incidentally.)
posted by Winston Smith at
9:54 AM
3 Comments:
As you say, being fun is not a sufficient case for being legal. I can think of any number of counterexamples.
What remains mind-boggling to us non-gun-owners isn't just that the various $3000 in weapons purchases were legal, it's that they didn't require a single background check.
That is a real WTF issue for me.
Yep.
The first and obvious move here is stringent background checks.
Is the NRA still opposing those?
Guys, background checks aren't going to do squat if the person has a clean background as this guy Holmes had or is going to just acquire them illegally as many do. Assault rifles (which have automatic fire capability) require background checks, but that didn't stop the guys in the 1997 North Hollywood shootout from getting them.
As for the guns themselves being illegal, why should they be illegal? There's nothing special about them. He had an AR-15 which is a semi-automatic rifle that fires rounds from a magazine (plenty of hunting rifles fire semi-auto from a magazine). That the AR-15 "looks" menacing or military means nothing. It is not an assault rifle as it has no automatic fire capability. He had a Remington 870, a pump-action shot gun that is used in everything from hunting to home defense to military, police, sport shooting, etc...and he had two Glock 70 pistols. He also had tear gas, which is illegal as it is.
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