Let me show you why banning high capacity magazines won’t solve a thing

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magpul 30 round mag

The Hartford Courant reports that the Connecticut legislature is going to disclose its proposed new gun laws. Among the proposals is the banning of high capacity magazines.

The proposed compromise among legislative leaders would ban large-capacity magazines containing more than 10 bullets – such as the 30-round magazines that Adam Lanza used in the Dec. 14 Newtown school massacre – but would allow owners of existing larger-capacity magazines to keep them if they submit to a new registration system, informed sources have told The Courant.

The bipartisan deal reached late last week by legislative leaders also would strengthen the state’s existing ban on semi-automatic rifles – such as the Bushmaster AR-15 used by Lanza to kill 20 first graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. People could also keep those banned rifles if they submit to a new registration procedure.

People cling the belief that the magazines are inherently evil

“We specifically want an up or down vote on the banning of these large-capacity magazines with no grandfathering clause,” said Nicole Hockley, whose son, Dylan, 6, was killed Dec. 14. “Because we learned, the way that no other parents should learn, that the most dangerous, dangerous part of an assault weapon is the magazine.”

They want to believe that if Adam Lanza had to reload more frequently fewer would have died:

“The horrible, brutal truth is that 154 bullets were fired in four minutes, killing our children, our daughters, our wives. The shooter carried 10, 30-round large-capacity magazines,” Hockley said. “We have learned that in the time it took him to reload in one of the classrooms, 11 children were able to escape. We ask ourselves every day – every minute – if those magazines had held 10 rounds, forcing the shooter to reload at least six more times, would our children be alive today?”

Unfortunately, these beliefs are without basis. And here is the proof

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx0JzYcwUiY[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGKvpabCCJ4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ivRhvYRAeA[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNlQLcllToM[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IVeFmHNzVk[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHAPDFxlTvE[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksZqzPWm7VQ[/youtube]

Lanza reportedly expended 154 rounds in five minutes. He reloaded six times. Had he ten round magazines he would have had to carry 15 additional magazines instead of the nine he carried in order to expend the same number of rounds. Allowing four seconds per reload (generous, as you can see) Lanza would have needed an additional 40 seconds at most to do what he did- probably less, since half of the magazines weren’t empty.

Banning high capacity magazines won’t solve a thing. People are focused narrowly on the reported five minutes Lanza spent shooting. The problem is, he had more than ten minutes.

And his targets were unarmed.

Politicians are falling all over themselves trying to seem useful and in need of doing something-anything- even if entirely ineffective.

Watch as one of our two useful idiot Senators is asked if any new gun laws being proposed would have prevented Newtown.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rabZESiiwA[/youtube]

Nothing being proposed at either the state or Federal level would have prevented Newtown. All those guns were legally purchased and Adam Lanza was not of age to possess any of them.

A person must be at least 21 years old to obtain an eligibility certificate for a handgun.1

Connecticut prohibits any person from selling, lending, giving, delivering or otherwise transferring any handgun to a person under age 21.2 A handgun may be transferred temporarily to a person under age 21 for target shooting or use on a shooting range if under the immediate supervision of a person eligible to possess a handgun.3

There is no minimum age to possess a long gun. A “junior firearms hunting license” may be issued to a child between 12 and 16 years of age.4

Connecticut also prohibits any person from transferring, selling or giving a machine gun to a person under age 16, including the temporary transfer of a machine gun to such person for use in target shooting or on a firing or shooting range or for “any other purpose.”5

But that won’t stop Blumenthal and Murphy from “fighting” to be ineffective.

Should they prevail, what will happen the next time there is a mass murder with ten round capacity magazines?

I think we all know the answer to that and that’s why this needs to be stopped now.

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^ A bumpstock is NOT a machine gun. Nice try, come again.

@John: John usually has useless and incorrect info.

@inthemiddle: Does John have a brother Greg?

“the most dangerous, dangerous part of an assault weapon is the magazine.” No. The most dangerous part of an assault weapon is the end the round come out. I have stood in front of many magazines, both loaded and unloaded, high capacity and stock, but I routinely point the end the round comes out away from myself and anything else I do not intend to destroy. Maybe that’s just me?

‘Destroy?’ Very telling, proof.

See if my link works:
http://youtu.be/bD213VW6WjY

Adam Lanza was able to fire over 150 bullets in less than 5 minutes.

@proof: I might suggest that the most dangerous part of an “assault weapon” is the dude with his finger on the trigger. ;-/

@proof: Your comment was my instantaneous reaction after reading the father’s emotional, albeit erroneous response to the killings. Here lies the nucleus of the entire Leftist response: it is erroneous and won’t accomplish a damn thing.

However, we shouldn’t write the Left of as being made up as naive simpletons. They realize they are accomplishing sweet bugger all, this seemingly feeble and impotent response is but an initial step on the road to making gun control and registration so draconian it will be virtually impossible to own or defend yourself in the future.

Practically or in essence you will be a cowardly and defenseless Liberal who, if he can’t afford armed guards, expects the police to protect him and his family. Thus your dependency on the state will be assured and you will be at the mercy of the criminal element that the Left so loves and protects.

Unfortunately, we deserve our to be sold out by our representatives; after all, we elected these spineless degenerates to represent us.

@Skookum: I don’t write the entire Left off as naive simpletons. There are those who are naive and perhaps more than a few simpletons, but there is also an elitist class of demagogues who, knowing that the proposal would not have nor could not have prevented the tragedy, are committed to the principle of ‘never letting a crisis go to waste’ in furthering their own agenda.

@Jim S: That, too!

The black market is precisely what the Left intends to create. Thus a large percentage of gun owners become potential felons and it will be necessary to impose greater sanctions to keep all gun owners or potential felons under control.

It is necessary to have control to have tyranny and a totalitarian society.

Do you really think they are worried about high capacity mags? The mags represent a simple concept that allows the cerebrally challenged among us to have a standard to rally under and a starting point to begin the tightening of the screws. If yo resist you will become a felon: if you accept the measures, be ready to accept more. Do you recognize the strategy?

There is no defense.

@proof: It is this group of elitist demagogues that we need to identify, isolate, and humiliate. Use the tactics of Brother Saul and Tzu against or accept the inevitable, but first we need to stop electing “Obama Yes Men” and those who are willing to feed at Obama’s trough of corruption and greed.

@Skookum: I agree. We need to replace every finger-in-the-wind Republican with a good conservative.

We have Adam Lanzas alcoholic, moron mother to blame. Not a high capacity magazine and not a “so called” assault weapon. The answer to gun crime isn’t taking guns away from law abiding citizens. I assure you, none of the people who are proposing such laws are about to give up their armed escorts. The first step to curbing gun crime would to be to label all criminal gangs such as the crips, bloods, mexican mafia or any others as terrorist organizations and treat them as such. The reason this isn’t going to happen is most gang members are minoroties and the cowardly leadership in this country lets that deter them from doing their duty to make is all safe for fear of being labeled racist.

yes but, first we have to replace the usurper or usurpator which ever or both together,
then after the tears of the libs dry up, it should be soon after,
there will be peace, in all the STATES,
and the non inform will not see the difference,
and the adorators will look for the real GOD out of fear to be dammed,
because they will remember their god was not the real one therefor from hell,, and will know
they have offended the real GOD who is a jealous GOD he warned us,
they will tremble in fear for the rest of their lives.
and what was the rules will be no more,
and freedom will come back for the tolerant AMERICANS,

NRA SCHOOL’S INITIATIVE they unveil their security pattern
endorsed by a father who lost his child,
it make so much more sense,
the family have weapons at home to protect their children , their loved one their treasures,
which no money can replace,
they send them to get educated in a house without any weapons to protect their treasures,
does it make sense? and there are some who are against it? they want also to restrain the guns of the peaceful citizens, does it make sense,
they already have freed criminals and those are now among the good people,
and OBAMA still want to take the power of gun out?
does it make sense? he is still chewing that stuff again,
his brain deteriorate more and more as he goes with his obsessives laws,
trying to scrap the laws of the CONSTITUTION, which is criminal treason,
just like the new hired two teachers at COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY which are past criminals murderers
and will be teaching the young minds,
DOES IT MAKE SENSE??????????????????
if they want felons to teach, at least they could get the felons who did minor crimes as young kids taking a bycicle
with his friends and they all where charged and became all felon, this is mild errors, who could become teachers,
but not murderers because they are the friends of OBAMA?
what a reference, think of the young people bad example laid out to them.
if you over look that, you are all corrupt

A slight correct in math, if anyone wants to consider the mag change as an opportunity for spared lives.

Technically, Lanza had to do only five mag changes since he would have entered the building with the first of the six mags loaded, and one round chambered. Assuming the 4 sec mag change, which I also agree is high, Lanza spent 20 seconds in a mag change mode with the 30 round mags.

Since this is only in 4 second segments, spared lives would require action by the victims either to run, or attempt to disarm Lanza. The first may be possible, if they responded quickly and didn’t hesitate, frozen due to shock. The second never seemed to happen but would likely be the more definitive course of action. Also not likely because the cockroach coward deliberately chose those who he knew would not be able to fight back. Then again, most criminals do.

Conversely, if Lanza used 10 round capacity, firing off the 154 rounds would require 16 magazines, and 15 mag changes… or 60 seconds done in four second intervals. As drj points out, an additional 40 seconds.

If people want to further play the math game, Lanza killed 26 people with 154 rounds that were fired at an average of 1.5 seconds. That’s just shy of 6 rounds per death, or 9 seconds to kill one cowering child… SOB that he was. May he rot in hell… but I digress.

That 40 extra seconds, using the same math, may have spared the lives of 4-5, had they reacted promptly at the start of the mag change. While that is only a slightly less painful number, again it’s not written in stone that it would happen. Would the kids bolt? Or remain frozen in fear in that brief span in time?

What is most obvious is that the mag capacity argument, itself, is absurd on it’s face because it doesn’t take in point of view for the weapon’s use. i.e. having more mag changes is a disadvantage if you are the criminal/aggressor, but it’s an *advantage* if you are the defensive victim, firing back for self preservation.

Ergo mag capacity limits… were they to work… are only appropriate if you want to impose that limitation on the criminals, and self defense victims are allowed to possess high capacity mags.

But since criminals don’t obey laws – hence why they are criminals – mag capacity limitation only affects those in the self defense perspective. Dumb, of course.

But intelligence isn’t generally part of those thinking with their emotions rather than grey matter.

As far as I can tell, this is the two page CT bill, S 5950, that goes up for a vote in the Dem controlled CT General Assembly. According to this APNews link, CT Republicans are on board, and the bill is all but assured of passage tomorrow. Considering- in additional to mag capacity limits – it has mandates for storing firearms out of the reach of a lowered age, decreases the criteria for categorizing a semi-auto as a banned assault weapon, and requires permits for purchasing ammo and bans purchase of any ammo via the Internet, I’d say it’s ripe for Constitutional challenges via Heller. And while the RKBA advocates have largely left CA’s assault weapon ban/mag capacity limitations back in the late 1990s alone in the courts, I suspect that lawsuits in the wake of the CT legislation will follow forthwith.

@MataHarley:

Six mags were recovered at scene on the ground. Three were empty, the others held something like 10,11 and 14 rounds.

Six changes.

But we do agree on the rest.

I stand corrected, drj. Thanks for the link. The six were on the ground (some still with some rounds) according to the CNN article, one mag left in the rifle with 14 rounds, and three unused for the ten 30-round mags in his possession. Basically he had 210 rounds (211 if he chambered a round separately at the beginning) with the seven he used, and dispensed 154 out of the 210/211 capability. The six on the ground contained 42/43 unused rounds among them. Not only a coward, but a wasteful coward. But then, he was actually operating on an average of a 23 round magazine then, wasn’t he. LOL

In one instance as Lanza reloaded, 11 children escaped a classroom. Is there really any doubt as to how many more might have been spared if the clips were smaller or this weapon, whatever you want to call it, was banned as Regan himself supported?

John, not to be confused with “small j” john, you speak of eleven spared as if it were fact. Unfortunately, ’twas not the case. As the Hartford Courant reported in the middle of March this year, there were six children that escaped from one of the two classrooms involved in Lanza’s cowardly deed. That was not due to a mag change, but the shooting stopped – speculation being either he incorrectly inserted the mag, or his weapon jammed. Logic should dictate over emotion that eleven children, who wouldn’t leap to their feet to run the moment the bullets stopped flying, could pile thru a single classroom doorway in four seconds. Therefore he had to have had a longer pause in the shooting.

Lanza first skipped Victoria Soto’s room and entered the classroom taught by substitute teacher Lauren Rousseau.

Lanza killed all but one student in Rousseau’s class, where the children were massed together in a back corner of the room trying to get into a bathroom. One girl escaped because she played dead and ran out of the room after Lanza left.

Lanza then backtracked to Soto’s room.

A source familiar with the investigation said authorities believe that Lanza started walking toward the back of Soto’s classroom, where the bathroom was, when he noticed some of the children hiding under desks.

Lanza shot those students. At some point he stopped shooting, either because the Bushmaster jammed or he made an error reloading it, giving six children the opportunity to escape. Soto had placed another group of five children in a closet, where they were found alive by authorities.

Some bullets struck three cars in the parking lot, and police originally investigated the theory that he was shooting at responding officers. They now believe that he was aiming at a teacher who was standing near the window.

Lanza shot and killed himself in Soto’s room with one of the two pistols that he was carrying as authorities were closing in.

In fact, unless you are one of the privileged few on the case investigation, we don’t know the timeline and sequence of events. Did he start firing at the teacher/police cars first before the weapon malfunction? In fact, was the weapon malfunction the last thing he did prior to pulling out his pistol to kill himself? After all, the rifles was found with a magazine with 14 rounds left, and on in the chamber. Jammed?

The best time for the kids to see to run would be while he wasn’t aiming at them, but the teacher/windows.. and then when the gun malfunctioned. That gives them the time to watch, to breathe and run. That isn’t going to happen in four seconds for the average elementary school child.

How is it you put that? Nice spin…

The point is, and remains, if you’re in the self defense position in a firefight, you want the bad guys to have a 10 round mag, while you have a 30 round mag. I’m sure that even you would agree with that assessment. That would be the only way a mag capacity limitation would effectively work. That would happen about the same time as world peace.

Criminals wouldn’t limit themselves via law. In fact, convicted felons aren’t even supposed to legally possess some firearms, let alone any capacity magazine. Therefore, the only people who are being limited are the vast majority of gunowners who use their weapons for sport, pleasure and self defense…. putting only the good guys at a disadvantage.

There will always be murder, mayhem, death, and criminals. You cannot legislate ill will out of the heart of humans.

Lastly, Bushmasters and pistols possessed by Lanza do not use “clips”.

@John: Telling to whom, John? One of the basic rules of firearm safety is that you never point a gun at something you do not intend to destroy. Don’t tell me, let me guess…you’ve never had firearm safety explained to you?

And BTW, if I wanted to destroy something, I would not rely on something as wildly unreliable as “bump fire” on any weapon. I will hit my target by aiming at it, not ‘spraying and praying’.

MATA
hi,
I think there might have been a teacher who made a move toward the gunner,
am I right?
or the teacher lay down over the children where she was found dead,
one way or the other
I’m just thinking , that she might have use some seconds to the total time,
bye

MATA
I’m thinking that gun must have been hot to the hand at a certain time,
am I right?
or and, the hand must have be coming numb
after so many shooting

John says: 22
In one instance as Lanza reloaded, 11 children escaped a classroom. Is there really any doubt as to how many more might have been spared if the clips were smaller or this weapon, whatever you want to call it, was banned as Regan himself supported?

And if Carthage had beaten Rome we would have world peace now. What you are engaging in is vain and idle speculation. We can never know because he had what he had.

The bigger key points you’re missing are first,
that regardless of how many rounds he had, because it was a “gun free zone” and those precious kids were unprotected, he could take as much time as he liked, fire as many shots as he liked, and walk unimpeded through the school with confidence that no one was going to shoot back…
Had he been faced with even the possibility that some of the staff could possibly be armed, he might not have gone there at all…at the minimum he would have had to move more carefully to insure that no potential armed person could get the drop on him and engage him in even a revolver-against-carbine firefight which would further have limited his planned progression through the building, buying time for the police to arrive, or more likely prompting him to kill himself.

The other key point that no proposed legislation I’ve seen has addressed is that while his mother was half-heartedly making moves to have him treated or committed, she was facing an uphill battle to get any mental health professionals to take prompt action…and at the same time neglected to secure her own guns…she paid with her life, but had she been able to get him promptly evaluated and under treatment or physical restraint, none of those lives would have been lost.

Instead, these idiot legislators are proposing laws that harass, restrict, and criminalize the lifetime-law abiding gunowners who have done nothing wrong…because it suits the left’s agenda and narrative.

As someone has written about this already, given a community under threat of wolf attack, these idiots are rounding up the watchdogs with pet licenses, and putting them down.

Kalashnikat
yes, and she was also scared of him, it was said that she told a hired guardien
to not take her eyes of him, I would have left at once if someone would have say that, and leave me alone with that youngster,
it was said that she had a hard time to get a psychiatrist, I think she waited too long to get help
it’s obvious now, yes about the weapon she was careless, although she had trained him to shoot,
bad idea, and she might have hide the weapons, and when he wanted it she might have refused it,
exasperate him, and gave in being harass by him, she was in bed, she gave him the key,
I presume and he is still hangry with her,like a sick derange he is,
so he shot her still while she is in bed maybe back to sleep.
and out to kill children why would he choose to kill children ?
any one have an idea?
he kill his mother and went to kill children, what could be his connection, that ‘s what the OBAMA crew should try to find the answers so it would save other lives,
all the past why a killer has target and why that target,
that is a better study than trying to take the second amendment from the gun owners and impose them costly insurences a no no, and bring the trouble in their lives,
the job is to research the killer’s brain to find, and prevent,
not getting them out of prison like he does, he has all the study he want in the prison waiting for him.
and leave the good law abiding citizens alone
for GOD’SAKE,
these actions now are insanity

I have a rather radical idea. How about they actually enforce the existing gun laws and prosecute the violations that occur under the existing background checks. From VP Joe Biden himself:

“And to your point, Mr. Baker, regarding the lack of prosecutions on lying on Form 4473s, we simply don’t have the time or manpower to prosecute everybody who lies on a form, that checks a wrong box, that answers a question inaccurately.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/01/18/biden-to-nra-we-dont-have-the-time-to-prosecute-people-who-lie-on-background-checks/#ixzz2PPaPKBTb

So, if you don’t have time to prosecute and enforce the existing laws, by all means, create new laws that you don’t have time to enforce.
But we all know what this really means. We don’t have time to prosecute criminals, but we certainly have time to make it harder for people that actually obey the law.

Mata has explained, in detail, what I discussed in the aftermath of the shootings in CT, about the time difference between magazines, shooting the rounds, and how long people would have during the mag changes.

When discussing magazine limitations, one must always go back to the VaTech shootings in which the shooter used 10 and 15 round magazines, killing and wounding more people than the CT shooter did. And he did this using handguns, which at distance aren’t nearly as accurate, moving between two buildings, and shooting at people who are inherently more mobile than the kids in CT.

That alone should be enough to inform people that a mag limit will not work to limit the carnage from these types of shootings. It should be enough to inform people that even if Lanza had limited himself to 10 round mags, the number of killed and wounded would have been nearly the same.

So why do it? To make yourselves feel better? To give yourself a false sense of security the next time one of these deranged individuals decides to become infamous? Ok. But what about when the bad guy is knocking down your door, not having recognized the mag limit for himself, and you only have those 10 rounds initially to fend them off?

You see, it’s not about limiting the criminals or not as to why these magazine limitations make no sense. It’s the fact that only the law-abiding will be limited. The advantage inherently goes to the criminals when magazine bans or limitations are put into effect. And polite society is the entity that suffers because of it.

When the criminals and malcontents decide to start playing by the rules, then maybe I won’t feel the need to use what I have to defend myself. As that is unlikely, I’ll use what I have, thank you.

I get the 2nd Amendment just as I get the 1st Amendment. Love em both.
But we can’t arm or arrest our way out of the societal problems that clearly exist. We can’t further become a society of “us against them”. May work short term but not long term–not for our children and their children.
Do we want to live in fear of our fellow Americans—of our own Democratically elected government?
Our children act out what they see their parents do. They are influenced by violent video games and outrageous music.
We must change the metaphor.The kids need positive role models.They don’t want to join gangs.They are fleeing something They need an alternative. I challenge Everyone to help one poor kid—to feed one homeless person–this month. Put your arm around someone less fortunate. Infuse kinship and hope.
“If a free society can not help the many who are poor it can not save the few who are rich” JFK inaugural address 1961

THE LEADERS have turned basurk, derange,
the real solution is to get them out,
we look at everything else, but we have to face
their regulations in any other solutions, so we are left with that solution,
now they want to twin with the UN arm treaty who want the registration of weapon
as a repetition of it,
they are forcing CANADA also the get it,
I might not be so well read but I don’t like the UN to get their power over the AMERICAS,
why would we give them our citizens infos, background and all,
is it so they distribute it to haters countries, why , how would they need to use it?
if they want those of other COUNTRIES let them, but we don’t need them,
it would give them part of our power of decisions,
and they will come back for more of other of our ownership,
until they own our COUNTRY and move in to lead us,
no way, we won’t

Richard Wheeler
what has work for century that law which the gun-owners respect
is a lot more solid than what they want to implement in a few months,
for the wrong reason,
so you keep the law and leave the law abiding citizens alone,
and get out of what they refuse to see the consequences,
not even discuss the consequences, of their new impositions they try to push on you.

@Richard Wheeler:

I challenge Everyone to help one poor kid—to feed one homeless person–this month. Put your arm around someone less fortunate. Infuse kinship and hope.
“If a free society can not help the many who are poor it can not save the few who are rich” JFK inaugural address 1961

Man, we almost have you Rich. You are so close to the “dark side” it’s not funny. Except, change “this month” to every month.

Re:

“And to your point, Mr. Baker, regarding the lack of prosecutions on lying on Form 4473s, we simply don’t have the time or manpower to prosecute everybody who lies on a form, that checks a wrong box, that answers a question inaccurately.”

This is why we should not accept check boxes for voter registration on Obamacare docs or at the DMV without a requirement to provide proof of eligibility.

The time required to change magazines is minimal and immaterial when the shooter has no fear of anyone being on the scene and able to put a stop to his massacre. Had there been just one or two armed staff members trained to react in such a situation, many of the victims might have survived.

Perhaps this should be considered as an advantage in support of the “Troops to Teachers” program.