Magazine capacity limits

[Trunk Monkey]

I'm curious how many of the folks that are calling for limits on magazine capacity are aware that we tried that w/ no noticeable effect on crime from 1994 to 2004?

That's my biggest reason for being against it, it's been done and it was a waste

Edited text bolded word removed having a hard time concentrating today

[cali]

1. gungeon gungeon gungeon gungeon gungeon

boring.

[valerief]

7. +1 googol

[DrDan]

2. so then why not be for it?

[Aerows]

3. I don't understand it either

It only takes one bullet to kill an intruder, maybe two. People that get a hard on when thinking about weapons scare me.

[DrDan]

6. I hear you . . .

[Trunk Monkey]

4. It did nothing so why limit magazine capacity?

first let's assume 300-400 million guns if 75% of them are magazine fed and the average person owns say 7 magazines (and that's low) per gun that's what 210 Billion magazines? If you ban them the government has to buy them all back.

Where's the money coming from

or let's say we limit capacity back down to 10 and find again that the effect on crime is negligible (Number one why the fuck are we wasting money on something proven not to work?) what happens next limit them down to five?

[Aerows]

9. Why regulate building a bomb that kills millions

I mean, good heavens, you could kill multiple people with a home made bomb, so there is no reason to regulate bombs. If 10 bullets will kill people, then it is NECESSARY to make guns that hold hundreds. It is absolutely necessary to be able to kill people. Self-defense usually calls for people to mass murder others.

You don't see a problem with that logic, or are you just that enamored with the idea of bloodshed? If it was your children, or husband or wife dying, you might have a different attitude, but as long as it isn't, long live as much firepower as you are capable of carrying, is that right?

[4th law of robotics]

21. Hard to use a nuclear weapon for personal defense

or any other legitimate use of a firearm.

[4th law of robotics]

18. For me I would say that in a free society

the onus for proof when discussing a ban of anything (guns, HFCS, salt, teletubbies, etc) ought to be entirely on the people demanding the ban.

So if you want something removed from society you should have to come up with a compelling argument for such a ban.

No one necessarily has to come up with a compelling argument to prevent such a ban.

Innocent until proven guilty, but for objects.

[DrDan]

30. that would be one way to look at it

another would be to favor the safety of citizens

[4th law of robotics]

32. Sure, but first you need to provide evidence that this will

improve the safety of the citizens.

Simply falling back on an emotional appeal (but what about the children!?!?) isn't the same thing as providing proof.

First provide compelling evidence that shootings like this could be prevented by banning 100 rounds.

In other words add actual weight to your claim that this is for safety reasons.

I could say it ought to be mandatory to wear a life-preserver everywhere you go. And I could simply retort to any one who questions this with "well I guess I just care more about the safety of children than you do".

But to have a good argument I would need to provide evidence. Like say, how many people randomly drown walking to work that could have been saved if only they'd worn the proper flotation device.

[DrDan]

44. well I guess I just care more about the safety of children than you do -

like the 8 a day (including teens) that die from guns

[4th law of robotics]

52. Banning 100 round magazines would lead directly

to the deaths of 20+ teens per day.

No I have no evidence of this. I'm just going to make a claim then scoff at anything you say using the implication that you're ok with those deaths.

[DrDan]

54. the post I responded to brought it up

[permatex]

56. Ooops

responded to the wrong post, sorry about that. I'll delete.

[Tejas]

31. You volunteer to help pay for the buy-back?

[DrDan]

38. sure - I volunteer to do that

<shakes head in disbelief)

[Tejas]

5. Harry Reid voted against the 1994 AWB, it was a stupid idea then and still is.

[Aerows]

10. I don't think much of Harry Reid

His vote against the AWB was a stupid idea then, and it still is.

That said, an AWB wouldn't have stopped this asshole. He was determined to kill a bunch of people and did. Gasoline bombs tells you that. That doesn't mean we can't have some sensible policies against 100 round magazines unless you have a good reason.

Not that it would have helped in this situation, though. This dude is nuts.

[Tejas]

11. A "feel-good" law is an insult.

How many crimes have been committed in this country with 100rd mags? How many crimes will a ban on 100rd mags prevent? Is this where we use the for-the-children or if-it-saves-one-life canard?

[Aerows]

12. An insult

Is a person that doesn't use common sense when legislating. Why in the HELL does anyone need a 100 round magazine?

Can you please explain that to me in non "feel good" terms, because I think the only reason a person needs a 100 round magazine is so that they "feel good". There isn't a practical purpose except to "feel good" but explain away.

[ManiacJoe]

14. You seem to be laboring under the misconception

that "it is fun to use" is not a valid reason for possessing a 100-round magazine.

If you want to ban everyone from owning one, feel free to explain:
- what problem the ban solves,
- how the ban solves it,
- what the side effects are,
- why the side effects are acceptable.

[Aerows]

36. You have a point

pot is banned for god knows what reason.

[ManiacJoe]

57. I am not sure even He knows.

[Tejas]

19. FINALLY in the last 150 years

a 100rd magazine was used in a crime so now you want a Federal law created so you'll 'feel better'. Your law would not prevent anything, but it sure would look good on a piece of paper!

[Aerows]

37. Pot is banned for stupid reasons

So I guess you are right, that laws don't lead to compliance.

[4th law of robotics]

28. I can think of a lot of things that I don't feel other people need

I wouldn't try to legislate them away though.

Instead of demanding proof as to why these shouldn't be banned you should offer up more evidence as to why they should.

/gut feeling, it's common sense, because they're scary, etc are not reasonable arguments. I mean concrete evidence that banning these would result in fewer deaths.

[Posteritatis]

29. Does there need to be?

Sincere question - a lot of times people call to ban one thing or another, and not even necessarily something violent or inherently dangerous, plenty of people trot out "why would anyone need X?" as though it was an argument to forbid X. Any number of weapons, cell phones, media, tools, some kinds of vehicles, some books(!); it's a depressingly common line of reasoning.

There's other aspects of high-capacity magazines in particular to discuss, sure, but "you don't need this" is, on its own, never a valid reason to outlaw something.

[tabasco]

16. Yeah! There were murders today so the law against murder isn't working!!

LEGALIZE NUKES AND EVERYTING!!!

[4th law of robotics]

15. On a practical level

what would have been different (here and in other gun-related crimes) if he'd been limited to 15 round clips instead?

[tabasco]

20. Oh yes, changing magazines is so easy

until you have done it in combat.

[4th law of robotics]

23. Didn't slow the Virginia Tech kid down a whole lot

he killed close to 3x as many with clips.

Actually the reason Holmes was stopped was that his 100 round clip jammed, disarming him. That wouldn't have happened with a series of 10 round clips.

[loli phabay]

24. yup as ive said before i would rathee have ten thirty round clips than a hundred

If a thirty jams you can dump it and have another charged. The hundred jams after two rounds and you have a paperweight for the duration of the jam. Plus changing mags is not that hard if you practice even a little bit as muscle memory comes and you become proficient.

[4th law of robotics]

25. They were actually *lucky* Holmes went for the scary looking magazine

rather than the more practical route.

[loli phabay]

27. i hate to use lucky in this way but you are right

If he had been trained and went the standard clip way many more could have died. I guess thankfully he got the jam and wasnt proficcient enogh to clear it.

[tabasco]

33. Can't recall how many times I dropped a magazine in combat.

How 'bout you, Terminator?

[4th law of robotics]

34. How big are those magazines they give you?

[tabasco]

35. 30 rounds. n/t

[loli phabay]

42. i think yhats his point. hundred round magazines are okay at the range

But someone who knows what they are doing would gonwith thirty round mags due to jams and the ability to reload quickly.

[4th law of robotics]

48. Why not a 100 since they're sooooo much more lethal?

Does the military not have any experience with shooting people?

/see what I'm getting at?

[tabasco]

58. Primarily because we weren't a bunch of candyass Rambo wannabes.

But also because it is more practical to fit a 30-round mag into a vest or ammo pouch.

A 100-round mag is not space-efficient and hampers mobility. A psycho shooting up a theater isn't so much concerned about scrambling to covered positions.

Hope it helps.

[4th law of robotics]

61. Can you think of any military that routinely issues 100 round magazines

to it's troops?

Are you seeing what I'm getting at here? It is fairly obvious.

Just because something looks scary doesn't necessarily mean it is more effective.

You could also paint shark teeth around the barrel. That wouldn't make it any more or less deadly.

[loli phabay]

46. no idea what this has to with his point.

[Trunk Monkey]

60. OK so you get shaky under stress,

not every one else does

[permatex]

45. I did so in combat

and I had no problem at all. Khe Sanh 68.

[1-Old-Man]

8. The higher the capacity the more likely they will jam

It is good to remember that bullets have both weight, diameter, and length. If you want to stack 100 of them up inside of a metal or plastic box and feed them into a gun you need a spring strong enough to push them and long enough to deal with the stack and still have enough strength left to lift that last one or two while at the same time not being so strong that the clip could not have been loaded in the first place. The bigger the magazines get the greater the chance they will jam or otherwise malfunction. There may not be much difference between a 10- or 13-round pistol magazine but there's a lot of difference between a 5- and a 100-round rifle magazine. Scale-up is rarely linear, in any circumstance.

[tabasco]

22. Full auto weapons jam more often too

So, we should deregulate them too!!

[permatex]

47. Same thing happened to Jared Loughner in Tucson

he had a extended mag for his Glock and it jammed. Those extended mags are POS, but I don't think they should be banned. Bans have been proven to be useless, there are always around them.

[loli phabay]

50. we are lucky in some ways these guys dont know what they are doing and think extended mags

Are the way to go. If they used normal mags and did competant reloads these incidents would have been much worse.

[permatex]

55. This is why I don't understand why it should be banned

they are notorious for jamming, which would give people a chance to take the POS down while s/he is standing there looking like the idiot.

[4th law of robotics]

13. This is one of those issues that strikes me as a tempest in a teapot

I oppose a ban on the general grounds that no link between high magazine capacity and greater death toll can actually be found (so if there's no concrete reason to ban something it should not be banned. Rather than starting with the assumption that it ought to be banned and then proving a utility for it).

100 round magazines are toys for hobbyists. Not particularly useful in the real world.

The only opposition really that I would have to banning them besides being pointless is that it would represent the creep of ever more restrictive gun control laws.

First it's 100 round mags. Ok, fine. Then, well we already banned hundred rounds, why not limit them to 6 shots like in the 1800s? Ok, well then why not make it single shot? Then, well what are you going to accomplish with a single shot weapon? That's a hobbyist toy not anything practical for self defense, so leave it locked up at your local shooting range. Then, if you can only have it at a shooting range what's the point of guns at all?

If it could be guaranteed that the antis would stop at this I wouldn't have any problem with it.

10-15 rounds per clip is just fine and entirely practical.

I suppose an analogous situation would be in defending bigoted speech. It's not that I love what they're saying or feel we couldn't survive without it. It's that I worry what will be banned next. Best to keep the war over that right on the fringes so it doesn't start causing real trouble.

Not sure if that's clear, but to sum up: I have no problem with banning 100 round magazines, I do worry that this won't be the end of it.

[1-Old-Man]

26. Agreed.

[MNBrewer]

40. Why should it be the end?

I'm tired of living in a gun soaked country. Before this recent event I wasn't coming for your guns.... now? Probably.

[loli phabay]

43. your right to vote for it and advocate. i doubt its a winner.

[4th law of robotics]

49. Case in point

you openly admit this is just the start.

Why then should people who care about our rights help you in trashing them?

[bigwillq]

17. Damn, thought this thread was about PlayGirl

[loli phabay]

59. took me skmetime but i get it now lol

[MNBrewer]

39. Where's your proof of that?

What kind of crime, for example. Where are there limits on magazine capacity? What are they? Are the laws not being enforced? if not, how can the law have been a failure?

[Zalatix]

41. Well said.

[Trunk Monkey]

51. Ever heard of the AWB?

The act separately defined and banned "large capacity ammunition feeding devices", which generally applied to magazines or other ammunition feeding devices with capacities of greater than an arbitrary number of rounds and which up to the time of the act had been considered normal or factory magazines. These ammunition feeding devices were referred to in the media and popular culture as "high capacity magazines or feeding devices". Depending on the locality and type of firearm, the cutoff between a "normal" capacity and "high" capacity magazine was 3, 7, 10, 12, 15, or 20 rounds. The now defunct federal ban set the limit at 10 rounds.

Opponents of the ban claimed that its expiration has seen little if any increase in crime, while Senator Feinstein claimed the ban was effective because "It was drying up supply and driving up prices. The number of those guns used in crimes dropped because they were less available."[2] A spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) stated that he "can in no way vouch for the validity" of Brady Campaign's claim that the ban was responsible for violent crime's decline

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied the "assault weapon" ban and other gun control schemes, and found "insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws reviewed for preventing violence."[4] A 2004 critical review of research on firearms by a National Research Council panel also noted that academic studies of the assault weapon ban "did not reveal any clear impacts on gun violence" and noted "due to the fact that the relative rarity with which the banned guns were used in crime before the ban ... the maximum potential effect of the ban on gun violence outcomes would be very small

The United States Department of Justice National Institute of Justice found should the ban be renewed, its effects on gun violence would likely be small, and perhaps too small for reliable measurement, because assault weapons are rarely used in gun crimes.[9]

"The ban may have contributed to a reduction in gun homicides, but a statistical power analysis of our model indicated that any likely effects from the ban will be very difficult to detect statistically for several more years. We found no evidence of reductions in multiple-victim gun homicides or multiple-gunshot wound victimizations. The findings should be treated cautiously due to the methodological difficulties of making a short-term assessment of the ban and because the ban's long-term effects could differ from the short-term influences revealed by this study."[10]