Jason Alexander long twit on Assault Weapons

[spin]

106. I personally see little use for a 100-round drum magazine ...

mainly because extreme high capacity mags tend to jam and I hate when this happens. In fact that's why I largely prefer revolvers and bolt action rifles to semi-auto firearms. Most of the shooters that I know prefer semi-auto handguns and many own semi-auto rifles.

Perhaps this style magazine was the reason that more people were not killed by Holmes.

James Holmes' Gun Jammed During Aurora Attack, Official Says
By ALICIA A. CALDWELL 07/22/12 02:42 AM ET

WASHINGTON -- A federal law enforcement official says the semi-automatic assault rifle used in the deadly Colorado movie theater shooting jammed during the attack.

The official said late Saturday the rifle had a high-capacity ammunition magazine which, based on witness accounts and evidence collected at the scene, apparently jammed. The rifle's malfunction then forced the suspected shooter, James Holmes, to switch to another weapon.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/22/james-holmes-gun-jammed-aurora-colorado-dark-knight-shooting_n_1692690.html

I do own two target grade .22 caliber semi-auto pistols and three 1911 style .45 auto pistols as well as a number of revolvers in .22, .38, .38/.357mag, 9mm, .45acp, and .44 magnum, a double barreled coach gun and a couple of bolt action rifles. This small collection of firearms was gathered during over 40 years of shooting.

I do know a number of people who own as large a collection as I do of firearms and in fact many of those I know own far more. Of course my circle of friends are largely regular shooters who have been shooting for years.

Glock makes a large variety of handguns in different calibers and while I personally think Glocks are ugly they are reliable, accurate and easy to clean. Some Glocks are suited to target shooting with 6" barrels and some are more compact and suitable for concealed carry such as the "Baby" Glocks. Therefore it is not unusual for an individual to own two or more Glocks.

Shooters often buy ammo in bulk. Target shooters often shoot tens of thousands of rounds in a year. If you go to the range once a week for a year and shoot only 100 rounds each time, that would be 5200 rounds per year. I often went twice a week and fired around 150 rounds of ammo each time. I was never a competitive shooter who shot in matches and such people often shoot far more rounds than I did. Of course handgun shooters usually shoot far more rounds per session than rifle shooters.

Practicing on the range with live ammo is also important. Most small-town competitive shooters that win matches are shooting 500 to 3000 rounds a month in practice, some many more. This obviously can be expensive, so most competitive shooters reload their own ammunition. With my progressive reloader I am able to reload about 500 rounds per hour at a cost of about $6.60 per box of 50 in .45ACP. This means that for $100 a month, I can shoot about 750 rounds rather than 200 to 250 rounds of factory ammunition. This is not enough to make me a competition winner, but it makes me much better than the 98% of pistol owners that shoot less than 50 rounds a year. Brian Enos’ website offers excellent advice for those considering the purchase of reloading equipment. I know him to be fair & honest; he will not advise you to buy junk you don’t need.
http://www.usacarry.com/tips-for-beginning-competitive-pistol-shooting/

I see no problem with owning a semi-auto rifle even if it is black and looks evil. I may decided to buy an AR-10 in .308 if I more to a more rural area. Feral hogs are a problem in Florida but wild pork can be quite tasty if prepared properly.

What might seem as totally unreasonable to the average citizen who knows little about the shooting sports would not be considered so by many if not most members of the shooting culture. It's a lot like asking a person who loves cars why he would wish to take a car and modify it so it has far more power as how fast can he legally drive, Or asking him why he would wish to own several different cars when he can only drive one at a time.