Image via Youtube
Imposing regulations to control gun violence is not a new idea. In 1934, Congress passed the National Firearms Act (NFA) to curb gun violence among organized crime. The law is famous for imposing strict regulations (to the point which they were essentially banned for common people) on machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, and mainstream explosives. As Thetruthaboutguns.com puts it:
“The NFA was designed to limit the ability of a single civilian to inflict mass casualties.”
I agree with the purpose of this law and I think we should take steps to continue limiting the ability to inflict mass casualties as much as we can today. As gun innovations are made and technology improves, guns continue to become more efficient than ever, meaning it may be necessary to place more restrictions on the types of weapon mods an individual is allowed to own. Saying, “I want them because this is America and I want them” isn’t enough; there has to be a better reason to have them in order to justify prioritizing the right to own these accessories above immediate public safety.
High Capacity Magazines
Before we discuss, it’s important to define what we are talking about when we say, “high capacity magazines.” A lot of people love talking about regulations on guns while they have no idea what they’re actually talking about. According to Wikipedia, a high capacity magazine is “a firearm magazine capable of holding more than the standard number of rounds provided by the designer, or legally.” After doing some research, it seems like the internet and certain states agree that should mean roughly “higher than 10-15 rounds.” William Ruger said some stuff about it- it was alright. Sound right? Sounds good enough to me. Those are the numbers we’re going with.
Image via The Trace
Why are “high capacity mags” a problem and why is it essential to ditch them? The reason why is because, in a mass shooting situation, the shooter stopping to reload gives valuable time for victims to get away or fight back. Reloading just causes more complication for shooter in general; it takes more time and makes the whole mass shooting process more complicated for the shooter, to the benefit of the people being shot at.
Honestly, as a gun owner, 10-15 rounds sound fine to me. I don’t know any practical situation where you’d need more in one magazine. Not saying it can’t happen, I’m just saying it’s not worth it to keep 15+ round magazines around. Getting rid of them would benefit way more people than it would harm. Having the privilege to own them is not worth curbing public safety for everyone else. I’m sure there are plenty of situations where having a rocket launcher would’ve saved someone’s life. However, when thinking of the wellbeing of the general public, allowing rocket launchers is no bueno. I’m still against people having those, too.
There are also some people who are concerned that limiting the number of rounds in a clip is unconstitutional. I don’t think it is. Adam Skaggs, chief counsel of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence had this to say about it:
“Having 10 rounds of ammunition to fire doesn’t materially infringe [on] the ability to use the gun for self-defense, especially when considered in light of the state’s interest to limit the ability of shooters to commit mass carnage”
I agree with this. Our basic rights to keep and bear arms wouldn’t be infringed. We can still defend ourselves effectively enough with 10-15 rounds. I support ditching high capacity mags.
Bump Stocks
What are bump stocks? Well I’m certainly too lazy to write about what it is, so here’s a link of short YouTube video describing what they are. Basically, what it does is allow a legal semi-auto rifle to shoot at nearly full-auto levels while still remaining legally semi-auto. I’m against this.
Image via Graphic News
Similar to why I think we should not have high capacity magazines, I think we should not have bump stocks because it gives people the capacity to inflict casualties on a mass scale. I do not want that. I know that using bump stocks makes a gun horribly inaccurate, however the Las Vegas shooting does prove that mass casualties can be achieved effectively with bump stocks when firing indiscriminately into a massive crowd of people. And what is to stop it from happening again? Getting rid of bump stocks is the least and most practical thing we can do.
I know that I only covered two accessories in this post, but I think I’ve made my stance clear on this issue: I am opposed to common people being able to buy gun accessories/mods that are proven to be efficient in unnecessarily inflicting mass casualties. I’m also open to other ideas for preventing mass shootings, such as background checks. Red flag laws seem like something I can get behind too. The main point of this post that I want to drive home is that I think it is more important to think responsibly when deciding what should and should not be, rather than promoting stubborn adherence to an outdated principle.