proposed federal high cap. mag ban

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The firearm is only a tool, but the tool in this case allowed the mad man to persue and carry out his madness. Not suggesting any new laws or restrictions whatso ever but it does present a conundrum does it not?
 
Spec ops Grunt,

Quote:
"Well, in that case your 1st Amendment Rights only cover 1700's printing presses and Town Criers."
End Quote

No, I would say that that statement carries the argument all the way over to the other extreme. Since you brought up the first amendment, I'm pretty sure that there are legal restrictions on the dissemination of child pornography (as an example), that to date seem to have passed Constitutional muster, literal intepretation of the first amendment notwithstanding. If one is OK with that, shouldn't it also it be reasonable to accept some restrictions on the amount of firepower that a citizen is legally entitled to keep and bear?
 
Um, instead of talking around the subject, we should get to the heart of the issue, the fact that we tolerate the mentally ill, I think we should ban mental illness, there should be a test every year, you should be forced to carry a license stating you are safe for society and that you should be in constant fear that you will be found ill and removed from society....

and while it's proposed for guns and gun owners, and no body blinks
yet this totalitarian state would go much further in the 'prevention' of needless death... yet it's letting the animals run the animal farm

Sadly this unfortunate event will be milked by the talking class for as much MONEY they can get,

Who knows, maybe the Brady Bunch can actually make money selling their membership rolls this year.....
 
Um, instead of talking around the subject, we should get to the heart of the issue, the fact that we tolerate the mentally ill, I think we should ban mental illness, there should be a test every year, you should be forced to carry a license stating you are safe for society and that you should be in constant fear that you will be found ill and removed from society....
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What we really need to do is start with cars. We should make people have to take some type of training class with a basic written test, and then an actual operating test to show some basic safety skills. Heck, maybe we should require them to carry insurance to offset any damage they may cause while operating that dangerous machine.
 
I don't think cars are safe, I'm for only allowing low powered (300cc and less 4 strokes) safety enclosed trikes, with a top speed of 50mps (they hope lol)

and limiting scooters to 25cc....

All heavy transport will be done by trains and rickshaws...
Actually that sounds remarkably like the current crop of gun laws, Wow, I hope a congress critter isn't reading this, he might get some ideas.


BTW, I am purely sarcastic in this
 
For MWisnieski and others with the the same thought patterns, the short answer is they shouldn't be banned for two reasons.

1. It's not gonna stop there. If anybody thinks they'll limit the ban to just 33 round mags or mags that hold over 15 rounds, they're smoking something.

2.Simply put, as gun owners in this country, we've given up enough. Period. Everyone seems to be talking about the negative outcomes of this but I see one positive, in that it seems like a lot of people are taking notice of this and are saying "No, not this time."
 
2.Simply put, as gun owners in this country, we've given up enough. Period. Everyone seems to be talking about the negative outcomes of this but I see one positive, in that it seems like a lot of people are taking notice of this and are saying "No, not this time."
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I'm not entirely sure what we've given up... lost the right to buy new FA weapons in '86... what else? I've lived in the NE, South and NW... I have easy access to firearms (I buy ammo online) and easy access to a CWP (of which I have permits for 3 states). I know some areas of the country that's not the case; those areas are the exception to the rule.
 
What have we given up? I'd say a basic freedom from paperwork and microscopes on our lives. As gun owners, we are the most heavily scrutinized, certified, registered, licensed, investigated, taxed (in some cases) people in the country and we have ENDLESS hoops to jump through in order to carry on with our lifestyles.
And regarding why an honest man NEEDS 30+ rounds in a mag: It is not for anyone to decide what I NEED. I don't tell you why I need to register to vote, attend Jewish services, or contribute to the editorial column. Start asking a man why he NEEDS to exercise a constitutional right, and you might as well start asking him for his papers on a street corner.
 
People who keep offering to give a liberty here and a liberty there to gain a false security make me want to... expound.

Today it is hard to conceive of the day that you will need one (or six), but if we go through a total economic collapse and you should have to exercise your 2A right just to survive and protect your family on a daily basis, it might get easier to see the need, and maybe you can think on this axiom as you are being over run while changing your empty 10 round...

It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.

Perhaps we all would have been better served if all of the people present and legally allowed to carry, had been. To my mind outlawing any clip makes as much sense as criminalizing 'Failure to Carry'.

Better yet from a legal foundation, if all of the folks who knew this guy was a whack job had done everything to have gotten him the help he desperately needed and had not failed to do their duty to protect the community we, the victims and he would have been better served. Blaming them makes more sense than blaming a gun or a clip...Here is an idea lets sue his college, his parents and his best friend all of whom knew he was a wacko and did nothing in a State that has the legal framework in place to help protect the community from people like this... hm... Maybe we can pass a new law that would hold them responsible and we could even imprison them for being guilty of Negligent Homicide.

BTW Mike if I honestly thought that the Gov. would belligerently nuke the people of this nation your whole nuclear argument would make even less sense, as it is it is specious.

I am not sure you understand the reason or the history of the second amendment. Thomas Jefferson said about the 2A - "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"

Unfortunately I can't rule that scenario out any more. I certainly don't think of it as likely or even remotely likely without some other event giving the 'reason'. i.e. Katrina as a reason to confiscate firearms clips and ammo from citizens; and if it comes down to battles in the the street I am sure I will be regretting not burying a dozen or so full ones with my now confiscated firearm, as I am sure that all of the criminals who will soon be preying on the rest of us won't have any problem digging up theirs...

What happens when the next guy uses a 12 round shotgun with 00 buck? What if he uses 2 SA pistols w/10 rounds? Maybe we should outlaw them too. Where do we draw the line Mike? Where England and Canada did? There are millions of guns in this country Mike, if we confiscate them only the law abiding will submit. The criminal will remain armed, and the unbalanced will still be unbalanced.

Perhaps we can pass a law that everyone must be subjected to a Gov administered psych test with parameters specified by gov Doctors. What we will we do with all of the uncovered mentally ill? Perhaps we could confine the worst and chemically restrain the rest against their will. Mike we already do a horrible job with chronically mental ill as it is, but perhaps if we had a war on mental illness we would do a better job. You know like the war on drugs that now has us incarcerating a higher percentage of our population than any other country in the world. We as a nation keep doing the same types of things over and over and expect a different result, it never works there are always results for which we are unprepared... perhaps we as a nation are insane... perhaps we should be disarmed? You know have our nukes taken away, and our aircraft carriers, and our subs and our fighters. Maybe even take away our individual right to bear arms, to protect ourselves, our families, our communities, and our constitution?

Perhaps you are right we all can close our eyes to the reasons that the Founding Fathers gave us the 2A, and hope that we never open them on the reality that they sought to protect us from... and everything will come out different than it ever has in the history of the world...

"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth-and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts." - Patrick Henry

“We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality” - Ayn Rand
 
I dont know if banning the number of rounds in the mag, or just the magazine is the problem. I see the problem as anti 2nd amendment people pushing their anti 2nd amendment bills when tragedies like this happening. Apparently they dont realize that police arent right there every time a bad thing may happen. I respect police officers that deserve it btw. The criminals that are insane enough to kill innocent people are probably going to try to own guns whether its legal or not. Who knows whats getting banned next? I think its the idea of banning mags, and irrational thinking that are the real threats here
 
Balrog said:
Well anyone can miss, so I think 2 is a reasonable number.

With three, you just start spraying and praying.
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Well Balrog, I carry insurance on my home, auto, life, business, etc. It covers every unlikely event known to man. I can determine the amount of coverage I'd like as long as I meet the state required minimum. Insurance isn't even an unalienable right like 2A but it's illegal for me NOT to have it.

Should a free man not be able to pad his insurance policy for his firearms as he sees fit, with as many rounds as he feels necessary to protect his family from every unlikely event known to man.....I don't have a problem with the two rounds and baseball bat you feel adequate to protect your life, liberty and property.

The question is do you afford me the same respect to choose my insurance policy as I see fit.

BTW....We're discussing magazine capacity, not nukes, tanks, flying dragons etc.
 
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I need some help. A friend has asked why the need for such a large magazine and I need help in answering this. My use would be in defence of me and mine or plinking at the range. Yes, my friend is an anti and cannot see the need for more than six or eight shots, ever.

Thanks in advance guys.
 
Earlytom,

Quote:
"Where do we draw the line Mike?"
End quote

Well, that's the essential question, and personally I can't say I have a good answer. But while it is very difficult issue to tackle, I don't think that justifies the position that there should be no line at all.

I did enjoy your thoughtful post, and I agree to varying degrees with a number of your points. You've given me some things to think about.
 
What if he has a mental illness, loses his job and can no longer afford his medications, and then little voices start telling him to go out and start killing?
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That's a pretty slippery slope right there. Where do you draw the line? Today you do it to prevent a guy from using his 30 round magazine (the news has stated pretty solidly he fired 31 rounds 30 in the magazine, one in the chamber). We knock it down to 20. Then tomorrow some lunatic gets shoots 20 kids in a school, we go to 10 and so on.

Why do guns only apply to this way of thinking? In the 10 years I have been in the Charlotte area we have had multiple deaths from repeated DWI offenders driving the wrong way on i-85, i-77 and i-485. Just horrible deaths. We have not seen a SINGLE law or suggested of a law making it any more difficult for me to buy or drive a car. We have not made gas tanks smaller or installed governors on the motors to limit speed. Nothing has been done and driving is NOT a right specifically laid out in the constitution. The right to bear arms is.

Mike, mental disease is just that, it is a disease any of us can get in our lifetime. Should we ban or severely limit cars because of it? Should we ban steak knives, axes, chain saws, civilian purchase of gasoline? Living in a free society means we have sacrifices for that freedom. It is not JUST the military who sacrifice. In fact, we owe it to them and the others who have died for this country to not rip rights away from folks in a knee jerk reaction to some lunatics actions. Personally, I find it offensive that they can go overseas fight and die for these freedoms we have and we will just sit here in our homes and allow liberal media, and politicians to simply take our freedoms away.

These deaths were tragic but allowing them to be used to take our freedoms away is even more tragic. I do not use extended magazines in my handguns. Never will, they do not do anything to help me conceal and I have trained to be able to swap out a magazine pretty darned quick. But my lack of a need for them does not mean my fellow citizens should lose their rights to own them.

Let's be honest this guy did not even buy his guns legally. He lied on the federal form which is a crime. Criminals will always break the law, they will always get the guns, extended magazines, etc and all these laws do is take them from law abiding citizens.
 
I need some help. A friend has asked why the need for such a large magazine and I need help in answering this. My use would be in defence of me and mine or plinking at the range. Yes, my friend is an anti and cannot see the need for more than six or eight shots, ever.

Thanks in advance guys.
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Ask you friend why do people need large trucks or SUVs? I mean do they really need to carry that much crap? DO they need to get a boat, camper, have a large family? Why does he have so many luxuries in his vehicle? Does he need power locks, windows, A/C, Cruise control, etc? All those items use up resources that could be used elsewhere. Come to think about it, why does he need a vehicle at all? There are buses, taxi's trains, etc. He should be forced to take those.

The US is a free nation. Why do we need to prove an absolute NEED for something? That's not what it is about. Instead before he goes and rips a freedom away from everyone, he should prove it will actually make us a safer society. I mean prove it, not tell me 1 lunatic in the last 200 years used them to shoot up a political gathering. I can guarantee you if the guy spent a single day on real training he could have used a 10 round magazine and swapped it out so quick he would have gotten the same number of rounds out. I mean one of his magazines was actually nonfunctional, he could not even swap them out before being jumped, so it says a lot to me about his level of proficiency with that firearm.

People kill with a lot of things, cars, clubs, gasoline, etc but we only ever apply this standard to firearms and while yeah firearms can be very deadly when misused, there are other things that are worse.
 
MWisnieski said:
I don't think that justifies the position that there should be no line at all.
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The problem with lines is once the line is drawn and people feel comfortable, over time that line becomes uncomfortable and a new line needs drawn to make people feel secure again and on and on till there's nothing left but some false sense of security.

Life and liberty are a risky business. Absolute security is not a worldly possession.

In case we've become so comfortable with our cozy lives we've forgotten what freedom is.

Liberty: The state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views.
 
MWisnieski, the other thing to consider with fastcasts post, if you look beyond the hype, beyond the pundits, what protection do these "lines" afford a US citizen? What REAL protection do they give?

For the vast majority, I would say none. They give the false sense of security Fastcast noted, but beyond that nothing. I mean we had a law blocking mentally unstable people from buying firearms, and a law banning them from inaccurately filling out the federal forms to purchase a firearm, we also have laws banning assassination of government officials, for killing other citizens, for shooting and maiming other citizens, and from brandishing a firearm. The man who cause all this was a criminal and walked right through all our laws.

Banning carry, magazine of a particular size, etc only impacts law abiding citizens cause we are the only ones who pay attention to them.
 
MWisnieski,

Your "nukes" question can be answered via two avenues:

#1. Using the different meanings of the words "arms" and of "ordinance", available at the time of the founders, a successful point could be made that the protected "arms" consist of weapons usable by an individual soldier, or in otherwords, all small arms and many so-called crew served weapons. "Ordinance", would then be taken to cover anything truly taking a large group to use and/or maintain. eg, the facetious "nuke" or " missiles" argument.

#2. More correctly however, would be to not get wrapped up in the minutia of tools and focus on the individuals responsible. If a person is law abiding enough to be "trusted" socially with a single shot .22 rifle, a deadly implement by anyone’s standard, they are then trustworthy enough to own anything capable of harm. You mention "what if" they suddenly went crazy. Well, conveniently enough for anti-gun politicians, no person on earth can meet the "what if" metric, because it is by it's very nature, completely unknown. Any person on earth is potentially "capable" of "going crazy". Since Tim McVeigh was able to kill almost 200 and wound another 700 using fertilizer, diesel fuel and a rental truck, the "spontaneously going crazy" argument would seem to preclude any person from owning anything more dangerous than a spork.

The biggest hole in the "suddenly crazy" argument however, is simple facts. Firearms ownership (including all class 3 items) is at an all time high, with almost every state allowing firearms carry of some sort, and yet despite those type of numbers, these nutjob events rarely happen and are actually statistically insignificant.

Our basic human rights (fortunately guaranteed in writing to us Americans) are all predicated on the assumption that until proven otherwise, a free man deserves unfettered use of those rights, and that anything less actually infringes on that freedom.
 
Your feelings, speculations, Laws and "right" or "wrong" aside I can actually see this gaining traction following Tucson and Fort Hood and the FN and possibly passing. As said most people don't think that deeply and probably would agree such a "clip" with a capacity of 30 is excessive so let's limit to 10.

That said I am buying a M&P Pro today with a 19 round capacity to exercise my rights (today), which may be limited tomorrow.
 
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By the time all this happens, the furor will have died down, Loughner will have either been found competent to stand trial or he will be adjudged to be a couple of tacos short of a combination plate and packed off to an appropriate facility.
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In AZ we have the "guilty but insane" verdict, no free pass for being off the deep end.
I think everyone here, including the scholars have managed to miss the 600 pound gorrilla in the room. Remember these lines?
The right to keep and bear arms must be regarded as a substantive guarantee, not a prohibition that could be ignored so long as the States legislated in an evenhanded manner.
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Self-defense is a basic right, recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present, and the Heller Court held that individual self-defense is “the central component” of the SecondAmendment right. 554 U. S., at ___, ___. Explaining that “the need for defense of self, family, and property is most acute” in the home, ibid., the Court found that this right applies to handguns because they are “the most preferred firearm in the nation to ‘keep’ and use for protection of one’s home and family,”
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...we held that the Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense...
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Those are from MCDonald vs Chicago, referencing the big win, Heller vs D.C.. We have a BIG hammer on our side we did not have in '94, and they know it - SCOTUS recognized the 2A meaning what it says. They have the memories of '94, and what it cost them, and how they had to hold the gavel past the deadline just to swing one vote, plus add the sunset provision to sway the undecideds. That was in a Democrat majority Congress with Demo pres eager to sign it. Then the election came, and even that pres said the AWB and its aftermath wiped his party from power. Now, with Hller and McDonald in hand, a pro rights majority in the house and much narrower margin in the Senate, I think they will drop this political hot potato as soon as they have made enough pious mouthings for the cameras.
I am in AZ and I saw one story on gun laws, which said, "not likely to change anything". The Speaker and the Gov have already said there will be no new restrictions here. If anything, we will once again make our laws better this year.
Do the right thing, letter campaign, phone calls, let them know we will hold thier feet to the fire, but I think panic mode should be offline.
 
And it continues...

Today Rep Peter King (a republican) announced he was introducing a bill to ban anyone but law enforcement from carrying a firearm within 1000 feet of a federal official.

http://peteking.house.gov/

See how it is spinning out of control politically? The mag ban bill is just the tip of the iceberg.
 
Since the tragedy the media keeps bringing up the fact that Arizona allows concealed carry without a permit. Carry restrictions can only prevent spontaneous crimes of passion, not premeditated murder. Every time some mental case goes on a murderous rampage there is always evidence that it was planned. If a man is determined to commit mass murder in a state that has the death penalty he is not going to be deterred by some law making it illegal to hide the weapon under his jacket. No law can stop a crime. All laws do is provide future punishment if a person commits a crime. This would only deter someone concerned with the future. Lee Loughner had no future and he knew it, neither did the shooter at Va. Tech or the Columbine shooters or the mall shooter or a dozen others. In fact these things usually end in suicide unless the shooter is subdued like in this case.
 
The problem with any clip ban is that it does not acknowledge the fact that active resistance brought an end to this spree.

Arguments can be made that somebody could have wrestled him to the ground sooner if he had been forced to reload sooner, to which I would broach the fact that a similarly armed populous would not have had to wait for him to reload.

To point, let's place a random, unseen LEO in the crowd when shooting started. What is the standard proceedure there? What is the likely response?

That's a rhetorical question. A clip ban completely ignores the fact that given the tools and encouragement, a populace can effectively police the crazy minority within it, as opposed to being utterly reliant on a competent/timely police response. This situation illustrated the quote "When seconds count, 911 is only minutes away" with absolute clarity, and that's not knocking the police. It's just a fact.

Tuscon citizens took matters into their own hands. Why not give them the tools to do so more effectively instead of treating them like childern?

I guess that's a rhetorical question as well.
 
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