30 Round Magazine Ban?

Let me just start out by saying that the whole thing seems wrong in my gut. When my friend called one day soon after the Tucson shootings to ask me what I thought on this matter, I had to admit that I didn’t like it. I kept going back to something Jon Stewart said on The Daily Show about something else when he referenced the story of some jackass, a frozen turkey, and oncoming traffic as pertaining to why we have fences on almost every single bridge that goes over a road in this country:

“This is why we can’t have nice things.”

So one degenerate goes and uses a 30 round magazine (See that? That's right proper English Language Definition, that is. Try it some time, MSM) to kill 6 people and attempt the assassination of an elected official and now we must all be punished. While I understand the strongest argument of the proponents of this measure in that such an item does in fact make it easier to simply spray wantonly into a crowd of people, I can also think of at least one other thing that we have that defies legitimization:

Cars that can go over 100 mph in a country that has 80 as the highest known (to this writer) speed limit.

Try legislating against this and you’ll see a bi-partisan effort mounted to stop you complete with the speech, “Sure, only a ridiculously small percentage of Americans go to the track and legally race their cars at speeds in excess of normal speed limits, but this is America and they can do so if they like!”

Yeah, it’s not what I like to do, but it is legal at a race track, and some folks really go in for that sort of thing. Kinda like some folks just love to go blow 30 rounds downrange to let off steam. Funny thing is, one of these things has a higher death toll than the other. Care to wager a guess as to which one?

If your primary argument for considering the banishment of anything is that your opponent can’t think of a single legitimate use for said item that satisfies you, then maybe you should review your premise and start over. Just my opinion, but I stand by it.

To view this from another direction, allow me to tell you about my EDC. An EDC for those of you who aren’t “hip” to my lingo, is one’s Every Day Carry. I consider my EDC to be more than just one handgun. It’s the whole set-up or “rig” in Firearm Enthusiast parlance. I carry a Glock 21sf on my right (strongside) hip, a Glock 30 in crossdraw on my left (weakside) hip, and a spare G21 magazine behind that. I carry other things daily as well, but let’s focus on the guns here.

I have modified my G21 magazines to hold 2 more rounds than the factory magazines can hold (13+2=15). I used extensions that can be easily purchased online for a small amount of money. All three of my G21 magazines now hold 15 rounds apiece. Additionally, due to Gaston Glock’s genius, these magazines can be inserted into the G30 as a reload to give a 15 round capacity to a gun that ordinarily holds 10 (+1 in the chamber). This means that:

EVEN WITH THE BAN, I CAN HOLD 30 ROUNDS IN TWO GUNS AND SPRAY DEATH INTO A CROWD.

In fact, I could be more dangerous in such a situation because I have two delivery systems instead of just one. Take one away, and I’m still spraying death. And before you snidely suggest that we simply ban the practice of carrying two guns, stop and think for a second. How would you enforce such a law? The Police have better things to do than ask everyone they meet if they’re carrying two guns. Plus, people can say anything to an Officer of the Law or just shake their head "no" and keep going. Such a law would see it's vast application After The Fact realistically speaking. A Perp shot up a store and killed three people? He also had a second gun on him? Charge him with the extra law to lengthen the sentence. It didn’t stop or prevent anything, but it gave the Police more things to charge the Bad Guy with AFTER the Bad Guy Deed was committed.

Helpful, huh?

All in all, this proposed ban is just a pleasant looking Band-aid on a very unpleasant Sucking Chest Wound. It will stop no one from committing heinous acts of inhumanity, nor will it prevent the use of high-capacity magazines in the commission of crimes. Felons can’t own guns legally, but they still get them somehow. Their criminals, ya know. They do criminal things from time to time.

I would be much more open to ideas that keep guns out of the hands of maniacs like Jared Lee Laughner. Like making it a part of the process to receive your Federal Firearms License (FFL; required to buy/sell firearms commercially) that you have to take a class on profiling like the airports in Israel use to find terrorists and other assorted Bad Guys BEFORE they get on the plane. Must work well, there has never been a single hijacking in the several decades of Israel's existence.

What I’m not open to is the outright banning of inanimate objects simply because some low-life decided to use one to commit a mindless act of violence. Blame the human, not the tool.

As to Laughner? Well, I propose a law that all his (and any future assassin's) “writings” both tangible and electronic should be stacked into a big pile at the bottom of a pit with him on top. Put 3 dirt-cheap .22LR rounds in his skull and light the whole thing on fire. Don’t “study” any of it. He’s crazy. Don’t immortalize him. He’s not worth it. Don’t acknowledge anything from him as anything but what we must all reject in our civil society. And when the fire goes out, fill in the hole and salt the Earth.

Just sayin’…