Smith & Wesson Forum - View Single Post - Hi-Cap Craziness

Pasifikawv · 01-18-2011, 12:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by walnutred

I expect a hi capacity magazine ban will be just a s effective in stopping crime as every other gun control law passed in this or any other country....

Therein lies the rub. Any law impacting the RTKBA must withstand strict scrutiny as must a law impacting any fundamental right. The law must be for a compelling public interest, be narrowly tailored, and it must work in satisfying the compelling objective.

If the overriding compelling public interest is to reduce crime and violence, bans on firearms and accessories do not and will not work to reduce crime and violence. During the erroneously named Federal AWB when standard and extended capacity mags were banned, rates of crime and violence were higher than after the ban expired. Crime and violence has decreased with the AW Ban on common firearms and accessories having sunsetted and right-to-carry having expanded. Those localities with state bans on standard and hi-cap mags have seen rates of crime and violence remain stagnant or increase. Those localities that do not permit lawful carry have not seen as great of reduction in rates of crime and violence as have their neigbors where conceal carry shall issue permits are granted.

Folks are using the fact that the shooter in AZ had an extended mag as a means for drumming up support to ban standard mags and usher in all sorts of gun control. I am not aware of extended mags available for most models of pistols. They may exists, but I have never seen one for a Simga, M&P, XD, H&K P Series, etc. Glock is one of the few manufacturers that make extended mags available for pistols - and even then it is only for 9mm models. (Granted some firearms are basically rifle receivers with short barrels and pistol grips that classify as "handguns" and accept rifle mags, but I don't consider those "pistols" in the same vein as M&P, Glock, 1911, etc...) Further, these folks are using the AZ incident not to target just pistol mags, but also rifle mags.

Those dead set on mayhem will work around laws: use multiple firearms for NY reloads, find pre-ban accessories, use homemade IEDs, etc. Yet, the average number of shots fired when a gun is used in the commission of a crime is merely 1.2 rounds. Prohibiting all but 10 rnd mags will have zero effect on the overall number of shots fired by criminals. As for restricting rifle magazines: nearly twice as many people were killed last year using bare hands/feet than were killed using a rifle of any type or capacity. Clearly, rifles (nor any firearm for that matter) are not the source of our crime and violence problem.

Massive social science research and historical data clearly shows the ineffectiveness of gun control in reducing crime and violence. I am not usually a cold cynic, but in this case I can see no other real reason than the proponents of gun control just do not like people who have guns. It’s not the guns they despise – it’s the people who own them: sport shooters, hunters, and self defenders. They paint every sport shooter out to be a trailer-park militia-type who wants to destroy the Republic rather than defend it.. They paint anyone who simply desires to protect themselves or their family as dangerous wanna-be Rambo vigilantes looking for any reason to draw down. They want us to believe there are no evil people in the world – only evil things and all we have to do is restrict man’s access to the things they deem evil -be that happy meals or firearms- and all our problems will disappear. Their attempts to develop public policy on such faulty premises are misguided and just plain wrong.

Our nation does have a serious crime and violence problem and it will require serious solutions. Simple-minded, knee-jerk reactionaries that blame inanimate objects as the root cause of societal violence, even if well-meaning, are way off base. They must realize that such obviously faulty and misguided approaches, without respect to the Constitution, will not solve our crime and violence issues and should not be used as the basis for law.