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Should high-capacity ammunition magazines for rifles be banned?


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    So the 2nd amendment is not about hunting - got it.

    Some say it's about protection from "an out of control gov't"

    I ask, if you have an AR-15 and a couple of hand guns, do you really expect to protect yourself from the US Military, because they are the gov't too. How about he police or national guard - expect on repelling them?

    Good luck with that, I'll see you at your funeral.

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    • Mr. Kissling, a general uprising of the population against the Federal Government would almost certainly result in a military coup d'etat.

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      • Thomas,

        Your point about the ease of smuggling weapons, in parts, into the US is accurate and a real risk. Gun runners could operate that way.

        Two points: first, very, very few assault rifles and machine guns are used to commit murders in the US. So, as threats go, those weapons are low on the totem pole. Frankly, if they were smuggled in, it seems to me the most likely buyers would remain those people who buy them now and use them for their own personal recreation, but not crime.

        Second, I'm not advocating for the impossible. There's no way to end gun crimes in a nation where guns are so easy to obtain. But we can tighten the rules/laws of distribution in ways that would cut down the number of guns falling into the hands of criminals.

        Keeping them from nuts is a little trickier because killers like Lanza usually have no criminal record to stand in the way. Sadly, in his case, his mother was his enabler. But stopping most nuts from buying guns seems achievable. The 2nd Amendment may confer a Right. But voting is also a Right. Nevertheless, you have to register to vote, and that right can be revoked.

        Starting from there, it seems we can work out some sane regulations for guns.

        Meanwhile, as I've mentioned, almost all shootings involve a lone perpetrator shooting a single victim once. That happens roughly 10,000 times a year. We can make a difference there. We can reduce that number.

        However, if we enacted a state-by-state system like the Department of Motor Vehicles that licensed and kept track of guns, just as though they were cars, we'd be in much better shape.

        However, I'd also extend police powers to include Stop-and-Frisk.

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    • Some choose to not see the shadow of the boot of tyranny, stating that what happens abroad in those foreign third world countries would never happen here. Your living it and do not realise it, till its to late.

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        Brian, I don't recall inviting you to my funeral. Don't worry, I'll protect you from those who would harm you if you're around.








        Thomas Jefferson.

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      There was a picture of a Vietnamese shop owner in California standing on the roof of his store protecting it from looters during the riots there. His store was the only one on the street that wasn't looted.

      Yes, the 2nd amendment has nothing to do with hunting. Please don't come to my funeral Brian, only free men please. They will be firing guns over my casket and I don't want you to be askeered.

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      The Constitution guarantees no outcome, but it allows for the fight.
      The present government understands first, the U.S. Military is adverse to taking up arms against the citizenry.
      They understand second, that when the military has failed them they are done.
      Discounting the military, the citizenry has more guns.

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      • Mr. Cunningham, your statement "The present government understands first, the U.S. Military is adverse to taking up arms against the citizenry" is generally true but I remember listening to conversations during Viet Nam among Field Grade officers (no Flag officers) regarding strategy and tactics that would indicate that it's not absolute. There was no talk of insurrection or I would have been obligated to report it immediately, but there was great unhappiness and coup e'tats are usually led by Field Grade officers, not Flag officers.


    • Mr. Bischof, I agree with your first point but handguns would even be easier to smuggle than long guns.. As to your second, criminals will always have access to guns, either by stealing them or buying in the underworld. They rarely use legally obtained weapons in their crimes.. Keepings guns out of the hands of the mentally disturbed is much more difficult and involuntary incarceration remains a slippery slope and easily perverted for political reasons. Lastly, "stop and frisk" is sharply limited by the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and a simple law will not change that.

      I currently own a .38 caliber revolver that was last fired about 30 years ago at a coyote (I missed). I also own 6 shotguns, ranging from my grandfather's 1902 Parker with Damascus barrels to a 1980s Winchester side by side (no semiautomatics). If a generalized gun registration law was enacted, would I register any or all of them? With an estimated 300 million guns in private hands, how many would be registered? I suspect many otherwise law abiding citizens would elect to bury their guns in the back yard or stow them in the attic.

      I am uninformed about one-on-one confrontations with one shot causing death. My personal experience would lead me to believe otherwise, but then that is anecdotal and not statistical. I have seen almost as many homicides caused by knives, clubs, baseball bats, hammers, stones, fists, feet etc as by guns. Most of the gun related homicides I've seen occurred during a drunken rage or were executions.

      BTW, the preferred weapon for close contact executions by professionals is a revolver or semiautomatic pistol chambered for the .22 caliber long rifle shell. It's powerful enough to penetrate the skull but doesn't have the energy to exit the skull. This results in the slug ricocheting around the skull cavity shredding and pulping brain. No one survives this wound while a high powered through and through shot may not be lethal.


      • Thomas,

        It's true that criminals steal weapons and sell them underground. However, it's clear that tighter laws controlling sales make a difference. As I've mentioned, the pipeline of guns flowing into NY City involves the purchase of guns in states with lax laws. Straw buyers are often enlisted because it's known at the outset where and to whom these guns are going.

        Mayor Bloomberg's investigations have tracked guns used in NY City crimes back to a handful of stores, in, I believe, Virginia and one or two other eastern states.

        So, if effective laws about gun sales and ownership were enacted in all 50 states, it's clear to me we would see a substantial reduction -- reduction, not elimination -- of gun crimes.

        As for keeping guns away from nuts, you're right, that's not easy. But I believe people with some convulsive disorders are prohibited from driving. Therefore it appears to me we can tie health status to certain activities involving a lot of risk, and we can do it in a way that reduces the chance of something happening BEFORE it happens.

        As a resident of NY City, where Stop-and-Frisk is a regular part of police work, I can tell you it's controversial, but only because most of the stops occur in black and hispanic neighborhoods. However, as Police Chief Kelly has said, those are the neighborhoods where virtually all gun crimes occur.

        The critics -- who are NOT the family members of people who've been shot -- claim the procedure doesn't work because the cops don't find many guns this way. But, as you pointed out, if someone -- cops, government -- were to check you for guns, you'd bury them in the back yard or hide them in the attic. Okay. And as long as they're buried or in the attic, no one gets shot. That's not the problem.

        It seems in NY City, with its sharply lower murder tally,t the THREAT of getting stopped and frisked has deterred people from carrying weapons. They too have left their guns at home. Of course, the hotheads, after they feel insulted by some bouncer at a bar, will occasionally go home, grab their weapons and return to take a shot at the bouncer. But it's becoming a rare event. So the deterrence of Stop-and-Frisk works, I believe.

        Deterrence as an effective plan works at the airport. We're still submitting to a Stop-and-Frisk before we can board a commercial airliner. Some say the process is voluntary, but, in fact it's not. For vacationers, yes. But people traveling for business have no choice. Have we caught lots of would-be terrorists? No. Because they're no longer trying to board airplanes.

        Nice guns, by the way. Especially that 1902 Parker. Love the Damascus barrels.

        As far as the nature of shootings goes, the FBI and DOJ databases confirm my primary point that when there's a shooting homicide, the scene usually involves one victim who could have been shot with a single-action revolver.

        However, among the unfortunate people I've known who became mruder victims, several weapons were used, including a hatchet and a bow-and-arrow. Nevertheless, at least two of my high school classmates were dispatched in the execution style you mentioned. They had gotten into the drug trade and things ended badly, as they often do.

        Anyway, we can see from our experience with the legal pharmaceutical industry and the illegal trade in recreational drugs, that enforcing laws does reduce the number of illegal transactions. Yes, with drugs it's easy enough to get around the laws, but there's no doubt laws against recreational drug use do reduce the prevalence of drugs.

        Meanwhile, the legal pharmceutical business seems to know where its products are going, making it possible to address problems, like Oxycodone abuse. Also, buying a lot of illegal drugs indicates a big problem. But owning a number of guns does not indicate trouble.

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    • Korean grocer at LA Riots.

      The unfettered state does not follow your rules when it comes to how it may appear. We cannot entertain arguments that which has already happened can't happen.

      And that includes governments themselves as the unfettered state. See Kampuchea, Saddam's Iraq, Assad's Syria, Qaddaffi's Libya, the strongarm socialist generals running amok in Burma these many decades, those Soviet gulags, or those German camps. There isn't a special breed of humans that permits all of that.

      "Out of control government" is not the only form that the unfettered local state can take. Where was the government in the LA Riots?

      Ask those Korean grocers, facing the local unfettered state.

      You think, had Romney won, that wasn't going to be Philadelphia?


    • Revolutions, which I am not advocating in this case, have to start somewhere. The US Govt does have capability far beyond the means of a bunch of folks with semi-automatic weapons and handguns. However, once the seed is planted - people realize which side they consider right and join them.

      Look at Libya and Syria.


      • Robert,

        Where are the oppressed people in the US? Who's so oppressed by government policy and enforcement of the state's laws that revolution is their deepest desire?

        There's no starvation? There's no religious persecution. There's no political persecution. Even though unemployment is high in comparison to the last 30 years, social programs have mitigated the worst of the effects.

        Libya and Syria were two of the most abusive states on the planet, and they'd been abusive states for at least the last 40 years -- Two generations in that part of the world. And you can be sure that neither tyrannical government will become a benevolent democracy when new governments are finally in place.

        They'll go from bad to worse, which is usually what happens in Islamic nations -- unless the US controls the establishment of the next government.



    As a dad with kids, I am more interested in keeping my kids safe than the rights of folks to carry semi-automatic weapons. I am all for the 'right to bear arms' - with the caveat that semi-automatic weapons and mental illness seem to be present at a number of recent horrific shootings. I would be more comfortable with the NRA if if was 'more honest' about the problem rather than simply being a shill for the gun firms and being a 'marketing agent' to sell more weapons.

    Congress needs to make our communities safer and not cave into lobbying groups like the NRA. A few trials that hold the gun firms responsible for 'death and destruction' would hopefully slow these firms down a bit....

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    • And wasn't great that a good number of Jewish fathers were able to see their sons and daughters and wife's safely on the those German trains to the showers and ovens that the German Government had setup.

      Some might say that comment is an overreach, but it happened 6 million times. In civilized Europe in what could be called modern times. If those men could had the means to defend their families the out come might not have been different for some. But as it was they had no chance at all.

      Stop worrying about whats in my gun safe and start doing something to manage the numbers of mentally ill that wander around loose on our streets. If we can afford to train Police in Iraq we can can afford to supply armed protection in our schools first.

      The NRA is not just a lobbying group, its several million american citizens who want their rights protected just like the old people who join the AARP to look after their's. Joining with like minded persons to gain congresses ear is one of those Rights one finds in the Bill of Rights. You should read it someday you might like the things you see.

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      Jon, than you agree that holding automobile manufacturers and the unions responsible when their vehicles result in death an injury to people. You also must agree that breweries and distilleries must be held accountable when people are diagnosed with alcoholism. You would also hold legally established gambling casinos held liable for those addicted to gambling.
      Should, in the future, that your children become sexually active and they transmit a sexual disease to their partner, you should be held responsible for failing to control their behavior.
      Like your lamentation that gun manufacturers be held accountable using a product , the above examples absolve the individual of any personal responsibility... Rather it seeks to assign behavior upon others.

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      Condemning "mental illness" or "the mentally ill" for mass killings is about like indicting "black people,", who really were listed, along with "speeding", "DUI," and "bad brakes" as a "major cause of auto accidents" when I was in grade school, or "Jews" for some real or imagined epidemic of crime: pure ignorant stigma, bias, and prejudice. The best figures available indicate that, while a small minority of the mentally ill, out of treatment and off medication, are sometimes violent and should not have access to guns--or cars, gasoline, matches or lighters, knives, or bricks--most of "the mentally ill" are not violent and far more likely to be victims than perpetrators of violence, and your chances of suffering real violence at the hands of a mentally ill individual are less than at the hands of someone not mentally ill. Your or your child's chances of being seriously injured or killed in one of these highly publicized mass shootings are not only lower than the odds of being injured or killed crossing the street, or by a medication error in a hospital, but somewhere out there with the odds of being struck by lightning or trampled in a buffalo stampede. By the way, compare the percentage of households with guns now with the higher percentage who had them before the modern run of these tragedies started in 1966, or some measure it from 1980. That was also before modern psychiatric medications, but those who try to blame these cases on those betray willful ignorance.

      I have known hundreds of people who have been hospitalized or otherwise treated for significant mental illness, many of whom had or have been committed following suicide attempts, in my law practice and other privileged and confidential relationships. I used to live in the same group of apartments as Richard Specht who later murdered eight student nurses in Chicago (without a gun) in a single criminal episode, and he was not legally insane and apparently had never sought nor received mental health care or treatment. Another multiple killer, Albert Tall, who all the news stories reported was an Eskimo and lacked human empathy (relevance and connection between those two facts reported together unspecified), had also lived in that transitional East Dallas set of apartments run by a very good landlord who also lived there with his wife.

      The proposed federal list of "the mentally ill" would, in their day, have included Abraham Lincoln, who wrote of sometimes being afraid to carry a pocket knife because of suicidal thoughts, and Winston Churchill, who wrote of the "black dog" of his own depression, while in office, and many others, more recent or current, who never murdered anybody and are also generally considered outstanding citizens.


  • Magazines for cartridges are nothing more than Pez Dispensers. They are not technical marvels of great precision requiring sophisticated factories for manufacture. A handy shop-guy can make them with a box-and-pan brake.

    The issue is keeping guns out of the hands of people most likely to misuse them.

    Meanwhile, over the last 50 years, how many people have been killed in mass murders? Murders committed by a single gunman killing a large number of people? Say 10 or more. The total is small.

    How many murders are committed every year? 16,000. About 10,000 with guns. Every year, another 10,000 are shot to death. Usually one shooter killing one victim.

    Doesn't it make more sense to reduce the total number of killings, thereby possibly saving lots of livess, rather than focusing on a rare problem that takes few lives and is almost impossible to control?

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  • Yes, but never let a crisis go to waste. Pretext? So what if it is? The end justifies the means, comrade. Shut up, please, or lose your ration card.

    Suppose those with a certain long view of history -- think heroic Soviet sculpture -- want to finish checking all the boxes on their Serf's Up! form. With a huge and enthusiastic propaganda industry at their disposal, they are certain to succeed.

    Great Wikipedia entry: "Agitation propaganda or Agitprop covers a wide range of activities such as: disseminating posters, leaflets, and movies; fabricating or distorting events, forging documents and spreading disinformation, to even committing acts of terrorism to force the enemy to react. Agitation propaganda’s versatility means it can be applied to endless applications and situations."

    And not just applied for fun. This is serious business.

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  • Only on 50 Cal. machine guns.


  • The NRA's solution of putting guns in schools is like telling a passive smoker suffering from lung cancer to take up smoking. & if adopting gun control laws in Connecticut means closing down a bunch of gun factories, I say go for it. That said, it's time to repeal the 2nd Amendment. It's an archaic idea from barbaric times no longer supported by more civilized Americans.

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    • Peter,

      Hitler's way was made much easier by removing all the guns from the citizens. Totalitarians prefer unarmed citizens. Meanwhile, guns are manufactured all over the world. If the gun factories in CT were closed, their production would be picked up elsewhere, changing nothing with respect to the number of Americans killed or wounded in gun crimes.

      Opportunities for gun legislation arise for only brief periods. We're now in one of those periods. But we have to enact legislation that will actually work. That means making gun purchase and ownership laws relatively uniform across all states.

      As a resident of NY City, I can tell you that almost every gun crime commited in the city is committed with a gun that came for a state with loose gun laws, which made it easy to put the gun in the hands of a criminal. That situation can be changed without infringing on the 2nd Amendment.

      But believing that banning 30-shot magazines or assault weapons will make a difference is pure folly.

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      • Christopher, Sie verstehen nichts von Hitler, noch was demokratisches Leben und Verantwortung bedeutet.

        Hitler put guns into the hands of every "German" and made sure that every German was able to defend his illusion of a homeland. Your vision of democracy is a perversion and I hope it goes the way of Hitler and similar lunatics of history.

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    • Peter,

      Gun control, the Law on Firearms and Ammunition, was introduced to Germany in 1928 and extended in 1938. You can debate its effect, but there it was, and its existence ensured the population wouldn't have a means of forcing some changes if civil unrest had developed.

      If you want barbarity, see Rwanda in 1994. 800,000 slaughtered with machetes.

      That aside, adhering to the 2nd Amendment's call for a well regulated militia is easy enough. All it takes is relatively uniform gun ownership rules in all 50 states. Someting like the Department of Motor Vehicles for licensing shooters and gun owners.


    • Peter,

      It seems to me Hitler was clever enough to know the ban on guns was useful for him during his rise to power even though the ban might have been intended to keep groups like his from sezing power.

      Inasmuch as there are at least 300 million guns in the US, a substantial percentage of which are semi-automatics, there's no likelihood the government would succeed with any plan to take weapons from citizens.

      The best plan is to filter the flow of guns so that far fewer end up in the hands of criminals and nuts. Again. Not so hard. The model exists in other segment of society. Motor vehicles, as I mentioned.

      There are 16,000 murders committed in the US every year. About 10,000 with guns. But almost all the shootings involve one shooter and one victim who's shot once. If we're going to make changes that matter, then it's important to focus on the relevant facts.

      Since perfect safety isn't possible, what should we do? Take steps that might reduce killings by 50 victims a year? Or do we take steps likely to prevent thousands of murders and shootings every year? I go for preventing the bigger number of killings.

      Meanwhile, were there ideas for reducing harm in any of your comments?

      As I stated, people in the US focus on one tragedy at a time, then move on. We're now focused on gun issues, but the moment is temporary and will pass, so if we're going to act to reduce gun violence, then something meaningful has to happen soon, or the issue will go to the back burner for another long stretch.

      As you undoubtedly know, there haven't been many pieces of major gun legislation in the US. Restrictions on machine guns were enacted in the 1930s. Prohibition of the Saturday Night Special in the 1960s. Mail order guns. An assault weapon ban. Can we calculate the benefits?

      Despite the laws, the number of gun deaths climbed until about 1990. Therefore, we can conclude the laws weren't very effective. Did they help a little? Who knows?

      Meanwhile, there's a racial component to gun crimes. It's true the handful of tragedies like Newtown are committed by whites, and the media coverage highlights this fact for long periods. But 50% -- over 8,000 -- of the annual homicides are committed by blacks, who account for 12% of the population. That means there's almost a Newtown per day among blacks. But that never seems to make the front page, or any other page.

      It's a touchy subject. No group wants to admit its leadership in these areas. But facts are facts.

      So what should we do? Any thoughts on that? By the way, with respect to the 2nd Amendment, I think there's plenty of debate about the definition of "militia".

      Finally, it's been my misfortune to know a number of murder victims. They were killed with a variety of weapons, including guns, none of which were legally obtained.

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      • There are, as far as I know, only two countries in the world where guns are freely obtainable by ordinary citizens: The United States and Mexico. Both countries had between 9,000 and 12,000 homicides by gun in the past year. In both countries, the social order is fragmenting and rapidly descending in the direction of what Brazil used to be a decade or so ago and what Somalia and the Sudan continue to be today. I see the NRA, supremacists of the right wing, and criminal elements, taking the United States in that direction -- all wrapped up in the pretty rhetoric and embellished arguments that other nation-destroyers before them loved to use: Boot-strappism, individual safety, fear of the other. Too bad, really. The United States could be a great country. I'm hoping POTUS will keep steering it in that direction of greatness by banning guns like the Australians did after Tasmania.

        And really all those in favor of free access to guns should stop by the homes of the parents who lost their children in Newtown and spend tomorrow with them. Indeed, I personally think the head of the NRA a coward for not doing it.

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      • Mr. Manda, guns in the U.S. are currently regulated and usually require a background check and waiting period. The Sandy Point shooter was refused purchase of a gun on more than one occasion. If you want to test this statement, simply go to a local gun store and try to purchase and walk out with a gun.

        Mexico has very strict gun control laws with draconian penalties and it is easier for a foreigner to obtain a hunting gun permit than it is for a Mexican National to obtain any type of gun permit. The problem in Mexico is illegal guns, usually but not always, used by the drug cartels.

        Cocaine, crack, heroin, meth and opiates are all illegal with multiple laws with severe penalties for possession or sale. So yes, the war against drugs has been so successful that we should enact more gun laws and expect the same result.

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      • Mr. Bragg:

        There should be no gun stores. Period.

        Happy Holidays.


      • Let's check the score in countries, past and present, where guns are allowed only to the government. Kampuchea? How are those Ba'ath Socialists in Syria doing, as we speak?

        I'll take rare, fringe mayhem in a nation of 320 million any day over the unfettered state.

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    • Peter, as I recall, Timothy McVeigh killed quite a few people without using a gun. Just a little diesel fuel. Maybe you are in favor of banning the manufacture of diesel fuel? Oh yes, Rental trucks were an accessory to blowing up that Federal building and the children in it. Perhaps you want to put U-Haul out of business too so that another mentally deranged idiot doesn't rent a truck to commit murder? You are attacking the wrong end of the crime. You need to realize that "mainstreaming" of mental patients does NOT work, and the safety of all of us is put at risk. Putting mental cases in jail after they commit the crime is locking the barn door after the horse was stolen.

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      • I did hear that there was something terribly wrong with the American education system. I couldn't believe it until I got the responses to my posting.



        So, you say, without offering any actual evidence, that "mainstreaming" of mental patients does NOT work, and the safety of all of us is put at risk. Putting mental cases in jail after they commit the crime is locking the barn door after the horse was stolen.

        What is your definition of a "mental case"? How many murders per year, and how many per 100,000 of what you call "mental cases," have been shown to have been committed by "mental cases," much less by "mental cases" compared to others of similar demographics, or other demographics in our society, e.g., racial, single-parent, etc.? Of course, I hope you have read existing federal and relevant state gun laws and know that anyone ever committed to a mental institution, or who is an alcoholic or drug addict, has been convicted of any crime for which anyone could be sentenced to more than a year in jail (list those sometime) is already barred from possessing a gun by law, and we know how well that works. One of the people who have robbed me, using an illegal sawed-off shotgun he rented for the job, was already on two successive life paroles for armed robbery. Richard Specht, who lived across the apartment parking lot from me at one time, killed eight nursing students in a single criminal episode, without a gun, and he was found not to be either mentally ill or insane. It has been held by Texas' highest criminal appellate court, among others, that being a member of a criminal street gang (which, also, is not always voluntary) has been held not to be something we are permitted to criminalize, though they kill many more than all the mentally ill, who the Surgeon General and others have shown are less likely than other members of the population to commit, but more likely to be victims of, violent crimes.


    • Peter, you are confusing the educational system of this country with the handling of mentally disturbed individuals. While the educational system may have its own problems, the "mainstreaming" of mentally disturbed individuals before they commit a crime is false economy. A car by itself can not kill anyone - it takes a driver. Same with guns. If the driver is determined to go out with a bang, it will happen. I only hope that when you are confronted with a maniac who wants to kill you, that someone nearby can exercise their second amendment right to prevent that crime. By the way, maniacs do not need guns or knives, they can do the deed with their bare hands! My point being is that it is not the tool, but the fool that commits the crime.

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    • Mr Manda, In no way is my note to you a threat to you physically. I only urge you to consider the consequences of your Pollyanna concept of reality. Please try to grasp the philosophy of freedom and civilization. Self preservation is the first law of nature. It is also the reason for the Second Amendment. If my life is threatened, I intend to protect myself. End of discussion.

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      • Mr. Neisch, Mr. Manda seems to be exhibiting his paranoia for all to see..

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        Up to this point I had just disagreed with Nelsch, but if he interpreted anything Mr. Manda has posted here as a threat to him, or anyone else, I have to wonder what a mental evaluation of Nelsch would look like. I'm somewhat of an expert, professionally as a retired lawyer, on the law of terroristic threats, and the courts have held many I considered as such, like the sending of baby casket ads to a new mother with a note saying she would soon need one, to be protected by the federal court involved's view of the First Amendment, and, even aside from that wrong-headed line of federal case law authority binding here, there simply was no threat to do anything in the posting of which you complain.


    • Peter,

      Peter, you wrote: " There should be no gun stores. Period."

      The guns used in most murders were obtained illegally. They were not purchased at gun stores.

      There are no stores selling heroin, cocaine, crack or crystal meth, yet despite the absence of legal sales venues, they are availalble. Things have changed for pot. We'll see what it means when pot stores open in CO and WA.

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        Assuming, arguendo, that your first paragraph is correct, though I can't find any solid evidence proving or disproving it, your main paragraph is right on target.

        When I was practicing law, I had copies of police reports on clients saying they were stopped or arrested because they were in one or another "high crime and drug dealing locale," to wit, the block in front of the police station or of the honest grand jury foreman's dry cleaning business across and right down the street from another police department. I have been offered everything from drugs and stolen guns to a four year old girl, and know of two sales of children which, when I reported them, I was told the authorities already knew the names of the sellers, the buyers, and the lawyer who committed felonies by brokering these transactions.

        By the way, the NRA's proposal to hire police,or more police, officers to guard schools against shooters is absurd in a time when we are cutting experienced teachers and the odds of an officer deterring or stopping such a school shooting incident, about as rare as being hit by a meteorite. As for Obama and Joe Biden, his choice to propose and ram through new anti-gun laws, that's even more asinine; I defy you to draft a gun regulation law the U. S. and Connecticut didn't already have that would have prevented the Newtown crimes and tragedy, but coming from them, it's dangerous to our liberties and our lives. It would be not onlyh politically incorrect, but impossible, not to mention potentially unfair and unconstitutional, to target the one identifiable characteristic statistically linked to gun
        violence, and it's not mental illness.

        High capacity magazines? The Newtown murderer could have committed his crimes with any number of common and legitimate firearms and a couple of perfectly legal spare clips in about the same time; it really doesn't take eleven bullet wounds to kill anyone.

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    • Others wish to argue and try to enlighten you to foolish ways Peter. I don't care to do that. My response is much simpler. Leave this barbaric land and its heathen citizens and go some place that suits your tastes. Perhaps mainland China. I understand they don't allow the locals to own firearms of anykind. A land that even Bloomberg could love.

      Our Bill of Rights has served us well for more than two hundred years. And as long as we hang on to it tightly with our hearts and minds it will keep us free for another couple hundred years. If one looks at the poll above I would say a lot more like our country the way it is, than want to make snap changes that we may wish we hadn't later.

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      • Mr. Heldenberg:

        It's obvious you don't have much faith in democratic discourse, since you're suggesting it's your way or the airplane ticket. Given your propensity to want to toss out those who don't believe in you or your point of view, I have a proposition. If you buy me and my family first class tickets on an airline of our choice and pay for all of our moving expenses, I'll take you up on your offer.

        Thanks so much!!


    • Do you actually work for Smith &Wesson? Remington? Some gun manufacturer?

      I can't imagine any other explanation why you would bust such an obvious gut to promote skyrocketing gun sales.

      Or, do you actually think saying such things will actually result in some other outcome?


      • If not sure if this reply is to me or not. but if it was to me no I don't work any gun makers. As I don't live in New York where all the factories are. Colt's are made in Connecticut. I wish I did have the skill to have worked for Remington or Henry Arms. But at last it was not my gift.
        But that said I do love my country and what makes it great. I love the freedom we all have enjoyed living here. Its those first 10 amendments called the Bill of Rights that grants that freedom. If limits can be put on the 2nd why not the first? Who gets to decide what rights are necessary. Would it be ok with you if my sons army rifle squad moved in with you, and you get to feed them and provide HBO for them? They eat alot., I have fed a couple of them, know how much. Do you really need a jury trial in that lawsuit? How about being retied if the DA doesn't like how the jury saw it?
        Those are limits put on the Federal Government not on the people. You are willing to give up the one that makes the other nine possible? You might, but me, not so much. Many of the people in my family have made it possible for us to have this conversation. Wouldn't think any of them would be down with giving up any of their rights that they had protected with their blood.
        All I say is if you don't like it here, please feel free to leave. Some of the worlds peoples have not had that freedom. But in this country we still do. For the time being anyway. And no I will not buy Peter an airplane ticket.

        1 Recommendation

  • Actually, the high capacity magazines tend to malfunction more often. Switching magazines takes only seconds. An inexperienced shooter who relys on a high capacity magazine may actually harm fewer people while struggling with his equipment.

    Anyway, it's a whack-a-mole solution.

    5 Recommendations


    There has to be a good reason for semi-auto, and full auto, military style weapons with high capacity magazines and Glock handguns because Mayor Bloomberg, Diane Feinstein and all the other elites of our ruling, entertainment and media classes have security armed with those things. What's out there that they're afraid of? Why don't they like the idea of us having the same level of security? Is it because they really do believe they are gods on earth while we are mere mortals and chattel property for them to exploit and manipulate?

    If inanimate objects like assault rifles and hi cap handguns really do spontaneously and independently kill kids, shouldn't these arrogant elites be divested of theirs? After all, where ever they go they then endanger little kids and that makes them hypocrites.

    Let everyone in elective office today be stripped of their security so that they may walk the earth like the rest of us in the world they have created. Maybe when they too are robbed, beaten and molested they will reassess their hatred of the Second Amendment. Nothing corrects a twisted mind like reality.

    5 Recommendations

    • Wesley,

      Bloomberg is trying to keep guns from getting into the wrong hands. It's tough for bad guys to buy guns in NY City -- except for those guns that are purchased in from other states that have loose laws, after which those guns are sold on the local black market.

      It would be pretty easy to make the black market for guns a lot smaller. But succeeding requires tighter gun sale laws in all states.


      • Mr. Bischof, your comments today are generally serious and thoughtful, something frequently lacking on this blog and appreciated. However, I would opine that the drug cartels obviously have great success in smuggling drugs illegally into the U.S. and could easily morph into becoming "gun cartels". Disassrmbled weapons could easily be shipped via Fed Ex, UPS or even the USPS. Cosmoline does not have a distinctive odor other than that of petroleum products and the weapons would be difficult to detect without X-ray examination. Ak-47s are easily obtained throughout the Middle East, Africa and Central and South America. The only requirement is money and a market.

        2 Recommendations


        Name one of the mass shooters we have read about, starting with the University of Texas Tower shooter in 1966, who got his weapons, magazines if any, or ammunition illegally via any black or unregulated market.

        The rifle Harrelson, a convicted felon, used to kill U. S. District Judge Wood and attempt to kill U. S. Attorney (prosecutor) Kerr was bought with full ATF paper work, by an accomplice whose paper work, using the phony name Fay King (faking) sailed through the federal background check process.

        Heroin and cocaine, unlike firearms, have been illegal since 1914, and, after hundreds of billions of dollars spent on the so-called "war on drugs," you don't have to look beyond the DEA Web site to see we're losing that war, whatever Obama calls it this week or says. It took me 19 months to get wide open crack house on this block, across the street from a state university and thus in an enhanced-penalty zone, shut down after the police told me they knew about it and after they, my neighbors, and I heard and watched sales there while they had their red lights on from another matter. All the way up the chain from city to county to state to DEA to the White House drug czar, they told me they didn't have the resources to shut it down. I finally got Building Inspection to close and demolish it. There are over 100,000 outstanding warrants for people who are already Registered Sex Offenders. Now they have already banned a lot of perfectly safe people [think Martha Stewart or any poor housewife who ever took probation after bouncing a check at the grocery store) from having guns and propose to outlaw and confiscate certain ones owned by a lot of law-abiding citizens. Even with registered sales, long intended to ease ultimate confiscation, it would take an army.




      If you think the politicians (of either party) or the authorities exist to and can, will, or want to protect the ordinary citizen from criminals, you're either very lucky so far and naive, or just plain stupid.

      My law practice and life very unexpectedly came to involve representation and other privileged and confidential relationships with
      an awful lot child and adult survivors of incestuous aggravated sexual abuse, etc., and several were the daughters, sisters, nieces, etc., and victims, of elected and high appointed officials palmed off on us by both political parties. Others were guilty only of failure to report what they knew about this, but some actively misused their authority to cover up these crimes. A judge and others heard one thinly disguised terroristic death threat, among others more explicit, in open court over the police radio. The Fire Marshal showed others and me the proof that the destruction of my law office had been arson, with separate fires clearly set in different rooms, and told me who had hired the "torch," but, for corrupt reasons, this was listed officially only as "suspicious oriigin," and not arson, and the police never talked to me and apparently never even opened a file. The primary thing missing from my fireproof safe file was the current file on a client we were convinced had been molested by her powerful father as a child based upon what several people knew and had told us. here's worse but I'll skip it hee.


  • As a gun owner and recreational shooter, I voted Yes in this case. I know of no recreational gun user who really needs a long magazine, so take them off the market--no bother to me.

    But consider this: by the time the law takes effect, there will be at least two 30 round magazines built and sold for every rifle in the country--so the law would have zero effect, except as psychotherapy for the ill-informed, and a convenient breast-beater for politicians. If I were manufacturing these devices, I would be encouraging pols to pass such a ban. I would have my best year coming up quick!

    4 Recommendations

  • if banning assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons will protect children and innocent people I'm all for it. but there is absolutely no evidence it will. so no I won't.

    p.s., not a gun owner and never will be.

    6 Recommendations

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