Banning Detachable Magazines: Would Do Nothing To Reduce Homicides or Mass Murder Shootings

Banning Detachable Magazines, Pt 1: Would Do Nothing To Reduce Homicides or Mass Murder Shootings

Banning Detachable Magazines, Pt 1: Would Do Nothing To Reduce Homicides or Mass Murder Shootings

Banning detachable magazines would do nothing to reduce homicides, or prevent mass murder, or mass shootings. While the idea is somewhat of a new fad among gun control advocates, criminology research shows that would be a non-solution to violence. We ought to instead look at underlying, root causes of violence.

California’s state legislature passed a bill that would have banned firearms that accept detachable magazines. The bill failed to become law only because California Governor Brown vetoed it. Gun control advocates have recently put forth the idea of banning detachable magazines as a means of crime reduction or reducing mass murders. MIT Economics Professor Chris Knittel’s made this suggestion in an OpEd earlier this year. The idea has also been put forth by other anti-gun fanatics and unscrupulous politicians. The idea that banning detachable magazines would have any measurable impact on crime, homicides, or decrease in mass murders is asinine, inane and imbecilic – contrary to logic and available research from criminology experts who study mass murder.

As a measure to reduce crime, banning detachable magazines is ludicrous. Over 90% of the 1.2 million annual incidents of violent crime do not involve a gun, and of the 120,000 incidents that do involve a gun, less than 9,000 result in firearm homicides (including all handgun,rifle, shotgun and other gun categories). Of those, the majority are the result of handgun violence (6,371 out of 12,765 homicides in 2012) – not rifles (322 in 2012), or mass murder (usually less than 100). These would not be affected by banning detachable magazines. The “logic” behind banning detachable magazines is to reduce potential death by reducing the ability to rapidly reload. However, research shows most firearm homicide victims are shot at less than 10 times, and actually shot less than four times. Reloading would not a requirement in these murders. A ban on detachable magazines is not a ban on capacity in firearms that hold 15 rounds or more. Capacity of over 10 rounds of ammunition – even in internal, attached magazines – has existed for over 100 years; for example, the 1906 Remington Model 8, which originally featured an attached magazine, held 15 rounds.

Despite inordinate reporting of mass shootings to capitalize on ratings and ad revenue, which makes it seem that mass shootings are on the rise, the truth is they are not increasing. Similarly, homicide, violent crime, and even gun crime are at 20 year lows.

Banning detachable magazines would not have any logical effect on mass shootings. A magazine is simply an ammunition storage and feeding device in a firearm, which may be internal (integral) or detached. All rifles, with the sole exception of single-shot rifles, have them. A ban of detachable magazines doesn’t eliminate magazines from a rifle, just the ability to replace one detachable magazine with another detachable magazine. And that wouldn’t eliminate the weapon’s rate of fire or ability to be reloaded, even quickly reloaded. The remedy to faster reloads for fixed, internal magazines have been in existence since before the invention of detachable magazines. Stripper clips are flat metal devices that hold ammunition in a line which allows rapid reload of semi-automatic internal, or attached magazines (note: available for rifles and handguns). Similarly, speedloaders allow for fast reloading in revolver magazines.

A criminal or mentally disturbed person intent on doing a lot of shooting could simply replace detachable magazines with alternate reloading devices such as stripper clips and speedloaders. Failing that, such a person could simply bring several loaded guns and not bother with reloading any of them. Even a single firearm with no additional reloading mechanism could be used to produce tragedy. Further, guns are no requirement to mass murder, and a determined person will find a way according to the experts. Dr. James Alan Fox of Northeastern University states that most mass murderers plan out their attacks well in advance and expect to die in the event. If one tool – firearms with detachable magazines – is not available, they will simply find another. The worst school massacre in U.S. History, the Bath School disaster of 1927 in which 44 were killed, the perpetrator used bombs, like the Oklahoma City Bombing incident.

Gun control advocates counter to gun rights advocates is often to complain that they don’t seem to want to do anything. This is not accurate. I advocate a genuine look at the underlying causes of violence – which almost no one is talking about – in lieu of suggestions which are easily demonstrated to be no solution. Banning detachable magazines is no solution to either homicide or to mass murder. However, a real look at gang violence (responsible for half of all violent crime), drug abuse (the single greatest predictor of violence, with or with mental illness), mental illness, and poverty, particularly urban poverty would be genuine steps towards real solutions. Rather than exploiting every gun tragedy to advance non-solutions, politicians and concerned citizens ought to be willing to roll up their sleeves and do the real and difficult work of finding solutions to the root causes of violence rather than cosmetic, feel-good measures that ultimately achieve nothing productive.

Banning Detachable Magazines, Pt 2: Banning Would Violate The Second Amendment

Banning detachable magazines is all the rage among the anti-gun crowd. However, several recent Supreme Court cases clearly demonstrate that such a law would violate the Second Amendment. The Court has repeated ruled that weapons “in common use at the time” are protected for use by the Second Amendment. Firearms with detachable magazines have been “in common use” for over a century.

As noted in part one of this series, California’s state legislature passed a bill that would have banned firearms that accept detachable magazines. The bill failed to become law only because California Governor Brown vetoed it. Gun control advocates have recently put forth the idea of banning detachable magazines as a means of crime reduction or reducing mass murders. MIT Economics Professor Chris Knittel’s made this suggestion in an OpEd earlier this year. The idea has also been put forth by other anti-gun fanatics and unscrupulous politicians. In part one, we covered why the banning detachable magazines would not have any measurable impact on crime, homicides, or decrease in mass murders. Here in part two, we will cover why a ban on detachable magazines would be unconstitutional in violating the Second Amendment.

In several recent (and one not-so-recent) cases, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Second Amendment: protects the individual’s right to keep and bear arms (D.C. v Heller, 2008); that arms lawfully protected are those “in common use at the time” (U.S. v Miller, 1939; Heller, 2008; McDonald v Chicago, 2010); and the 14th Amendment extends Second Amendment protections to all states (McDonald, 2010). In the light of these Supreme Court rulings, it is clear any state or federal law banning detachable magazines would violate the Second Amendment’s protections to the people’s civil right to keep and bear arms.

In Heller, The Supreme Court defined what “arms” means in legal and historical context:

Before addressing the verbs “keep” and “bear,” we interpret their object: “Arms.” The 18th-century meaning is no different from the meaning today…defined “arms” as “weapons of offen[s]e, or armor of defen[s]e.”…Timothy Cunningham’s important 1771 legal dictionary defined “arms” as “any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another” (p.7).

All firearms constitute arms according the Supreme Court: “The Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding” (p.8). While this doesn’t mean any arms whatsoever, in Heller the Court upheld previous legal restrictions from Miller on “dangerous and unusual” weapons. It should be noted that “dangerous and unusual” weapons are specifically defined and highly regulated under the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA). They are also not “banned”, but are legal to own, provided the proper paperwork is filed with the ATF. “Dangerous and unusual” does not mean semi-automatic rifles and handguns, which are not regulated by the NFA.

The Court stated that what is protected are arms “in common use at the time” in Miller, Heller and McDonald. Rifles with magazines have been in existence for nearly two centuries. A magazine is an ammunition storage and feeding device in a firearm, and may be internal or detachable. All rifles, with the sole exception of single-shot rifles, have them. Rifles with magazines have been common since the 1800′s; the first bolt-action rifle was invented in 1824. Bolt-action and lever-action rifles with magazines became increasingly prevalent throughout the 1800′s: the Spencer repeating rifle utilized a tube magazine, while the M1885 Remington-Lee which featured an internal box magazine.

Detachable magazines have existed since the early 1900′s. The 1911 Colt .45 handgun, still “in common use” today, features detachable magazines. The Thompson “Tommy Gun” rifle, invented in 1919, also features detachable magazines. The Remington Model 8 and 81, first developed in 1906 with attached box magazines, was adapted in the 1920′s for detachable box magazines. Today, detachable magazines are common in everything from bolt-action rifles, like the Remington 700 to semi-automatic rifles like the AR-15, Mini-14, M-14, FAL, G3/H&K 91 type, AK47 variants and many others, and virtually all semi-automatic handguns. Because today’s detachable magazines are so common, many people think of magazines as separate objects, but they are integral to the function of rifles.

The Court has also said in Heller it is unconstitutional to ban an entire class of weapons popularly chosen by the American people (p.56-57). The Court also said that constitutionally protected rights are not subject to an interest-balancing approach, meaning the right can’t be limited just because gun violence is a problem (p.62-63). The Court states, “we are aware of the problem of [gun] violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution…But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table” (p.64). Similarly, semi-automatic rifles and handguns that utilize detachable magazines have been overwhelmingly chosen by the American people for lawful purposes including home and self-defense and hunting. The Court stated in Heller “as we have explained [from Miller], that the sorts of weapons protected were those “in common use at the time” (p.55). A law banning them would violate the Second Amendment.