Large capacity magazines

[Straw Man]

59. Weak argument.

Of course it is. We still make it illegal.

By your argument, nothing should ever be illegal, because, duh, people break the law. But we do have laws.

Malum in se vs. malum prohibitum. The former deals with things that are abhorrent in and of themselves and never have a justifiable use: murder, rape, theft, etc. The latter deals with items or practices that had widespread social acceptance but have come to be seen as too problematic to be permitted.

Prohibitionist theory presupposes that society will benefit from a ban on these items or practices, and that this benefit outweighs the loss of individual freedom that the ban entails. A ban that doesn't succeed in removing the item from common use -- such as the Volstead Act, the War on Drugs, or a high-cap magazine ban -- fails on both accounts. It curtails individual freedom and doesn't cure the social ill, because, duh, the law is very easy to break and virtually impossible to enforce.