The myth of the high capacity gun magazine

NBC News personality, David Gregory got into a little hot water Sunday, when he displayed a 30 round capacity magazine while interviewing NRA President , Wayne LaPierre. Oooh. That's a big no-no as Washington D.C. outlawed gun magazines that are capable of holding more than 10 rounds. Mr. Gregory could be in some trouble as NBC claims the magazine wasn't purchased on their behalf for the news show. Is it his own magazine? David is not very pro-gun. So where did he get the magazine? Is it his own? Did he buy it "hot" from the streets. He got some splain'in to do. But I doubt a good liberal like David Gregory will get into much trouble. Somehow he'll walk away from this without even a slap on the wrists. But the bigger question here is about the high capacity magazine itself.

30 rounds. Who needs 30 rounds readily available, right? Well, in places like D.C., N.Y. and California, magazine capacities are regulated and may not exceed 10 rounds. That should be much safer. The logic being employed here is that some nut job couldn't be able to reek as much havoc with magazines that held less ammunition. As a semi-automatic gun owner whose gun magazines hold 15 rounds, I can assure you that I and most people could fire the 15 rounds, eject the empty magazine, reload another magazine and fire an additional 15 rounds in under 20 seconds. 25 seconds on a bad day. The difference is that I as a responsible gun owner am no threat to anyone not threatening me. A misguided nut job can inflict mayhem with one 30 round mag or two 15 round clips. If you think even a 15 round mag is unwarranted, then how about a 10 round one? The time it takes to empty three 10 round mags is longer - but not by much. Perhaps we should max out magazine capacity at 6, like the ol' six shooters of old West. Then again, maybe single shot muskets would be safer yet. Of course we won our Independence from a major world power using muskets, so perhaps they're too lethal as well.

The amount of rounds readily available in any firearm is inconsequential. Its the person using the firearm that matters most. Robert Kennedy was slain with a eight shot capacity .22 caliber gun. His brother, Jack with a 5 round bolt action (non semi-automatic) rifle (Only 3 shots were actually fired). Abraham Lincoln with a single shot Derringer. Martin Luther King died at the hands of a relatively small caliber "pump action" rifle. While large capacity magazines get a lot of attention, they are seldom used in robberies, home invasions or most criminal activities. The tragedy in Connecticut was an exception. Tragic, yes. But still the exception. over 400 people have been murdered in Chicago this year. None by high capacity magazine guns. The criminal element prefers smaller capacity handguns. So-called assault weapon inflicted deaths account for less than 2% of the total gun related deaths. So why is such attention given to what is obviously a minor role player in gun related deaths?

Well, large capacity magazines are scary. And an argument as to who may actually need one is an easy to make - just like a scary looking rifle some insist calling a scary name like "assault" rifle. If you're looking to make inroads into eventually disarming America, you start with the easy low hanging fruit. Once you can ban one type of gun or one kind of magazine, the ball is easier to keep rolling. Next will be certain types of handguns. Certain kinds of rifles, so on and so on. Then one day you wake up and the Feds tell you how long your butter knives are allowed to be. Yeah, it may sound ridiculous. But so is the myth that says we'll all be safer with guns that carry less than 10 rounds.