I ran across a blog post advocating for the banning of normal capacity magazines today. I left a comment. It immediately showed up but I fear he might engage in some “Reasoned Discourse” so I’m posting my comment here as well:
It’s called a Bill of Rights. Not a Bill of Needs.
There are probably 100 million or more of these normal capacity magazines of greater than 10 round capacity in private hands in the U.S. Because they are “in common use” these magazines are protected by the Heller Decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. Repealing the common use test would require a new ruling from the Supreme court.
Every magazine I own holds more than 10 rounds – I must me one evil person.
heh.
Pray tell, exactly what types of firearms for self defense, hunting, target shooting, and other uses, would you personally be willing to allow the citizens of the US to own? Specify caliber (using existing calibers from .17 to 50BMG or 600 Nitro, leaving out military calibers of larger size), operating mechanism (single shot, revolver, semiautomatic, fully automatic), action type (break-open, lever action, bolt action, semiauto open bolt, semiauto closed bolt, and so on) and ammunition capacity.
This might give us a start on understanding what you hope to accomplish with a ban on normal-capacity magazines for firearms, which have been in common use by civilians and police and military since before World War 1.
See, it is not the 11th bullet in the magazine that worries me when I am faced with a violent armed criminal, it is the 1st bullet he might shoot at me that gets my full attention. And the only way I see to avoid facing that 1st bullet is to make sure violent armed criminals stay behind the bars of prisons rather than out in public.
Can you suggest any other way to stop that 1st bullet from being used?
Even if we are left we “primitive” firearms (revolvers and bolt guns, or maybe even less), the population remains armed. That means the gun control people are either just trying to annoy gun enthusiasts – OR they ultimately want to disarm the entire population and leave us like the UK is today.
The guy actually seems halfway open to other opinions, so I took a shot…
Oh, sorry Joe. 🙁 I forgot to H/T to you…
Excellent reply Tango. Even if we assume that any current administration was trustworthy and sufficiently benevolent to be entrusted with a monopoly of force, there is one more issue. You aren’t just trusting them. You are trusting every future group of elected officials with that power.
As for the advanced weapons we have compared to the founding fathers generation, you can damned well bet that if the redcoats had some type of repeating long arms George Washington and co. would have wanted them as well. I know it has been done many time beforeon this subject, but I’ll end with some quotes
“Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American … the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.” -Coxe
and just who is the militia?
http://www.sightm1911.com/lib/rkba/ff_militia.htm
Screw it, just going to post the entire altercation.
From me:
and from him:
And finally, my reply:
And, at least he’s seeing the light. It’s not about the guns, it’s about the people that use them.
Wait, I thought “high-capacity magazines” referred to periodicals with an unusually large amount of information in them, thus making it a first amendment issue…