I'm sorry to be delayed on this, but here at last is what I find the clearest response to our call for stories about armed heroes. The challenge was to find a modern instance in which a civilian bystander with a gun stopped a mass shooting.
@JamieBrowning submitted a May 26, 2008, news account from the Reno Gazette-Journal -- I was able to verify it in Nexis, though I don't have a link to the original -- of a man in Winnemucca who killed another man shooting into a crowded bar. As posted by Jamie Browning, the story contains this detail:
When Villagomez began reloading, a 48-year-old Reno man drew his pistol and killed Villagomez.
Note that the Nevada killer had to stop and reload, and that's when he was shot. So yes, an armed bystander saved the day, or night. And yes, his heroism happened when the killer paused. If so inclined, you could see this as an argument for the kind of gun measure that's now being proposed by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-New York), which would take the fairly limited step of re-instating the ban on high-capacity magazines.
Thanks also to @Vic S and others for links to the 1966 University of Texas tower shooting and the 2005 Tyler County (Texas) shooting. Neither meets the strict criteria -- armed bystander stops mass shooting -- but each instance, armed bystanders do appear to have saved lives. Whether that's enough to justify calls for more guns as a way to stop shootings seems a little iffy to me, personally.
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You can find far more who have succeeded if you change it to "bystanders with arms"...actual arms though not firearms.
There are not that many 'mass shootings' in the country as it is. If you broadened the scope to 'armed citizen saves lives' I think you would have a much larger response.
I tire of hearing people say that there are far too many weapons in the US for them to be taken off the streets and a weapon smart society to flourish.
After World War 2 there were hundreds of thousands of weapons lying around all over Europe and we were still recovering from invasions and waiting for the next one to begin but we still cleaned the streets up and managed to get the guns out of the hands of those who were not supposed to have them in the first place.
Do you mean to tell me that the America of today does not have the strength of a decimated Europe of 50 years ago? I believe that intelligence will overcome ignorance, I believe that fortitude will replace fear and I hope that Love will outwit Lobbying in this arena where we are all equally at risk.
There have been many cases in Europe where guns were used monstrously such as in Scotland and others but restrictions on who can own a weapon and how they are to be stored helps ensure that fewer weapons are stolen and used in improper ways.
I think I agree with you, except that you are citing perhaps the only mass shooting in a school (the one in Scotland) in Europe. I think there was another one in Germany. But the number is infinitesimal in comparison with the number of people who are killed with guns in America.
There are lots of guns in Europe. They hunt a lot. In Switzerland, in particular, there are a lot of guns because men have to serve in the military until they are 50, and they keep their guns at home. Same in Israel. In these countries there are far fewer murders than in the U.S.
In my personal experience in Europe, the vast majority of people do not own guns, except for hunting, which they greatly enjoy. What is more, they do not strut their guns, and flash their guns.
As for the war -- don't you think they might have thought they had seen enough guns for the moment, thank you very much, after being marched over, bombed, and slaughtered in the Second World War? I hate to think we would need such an experience to tire ourselves of guns.
Annabellina is right. BTW, there ARE too many guns to sweep them off the streets. Your pooh-poohing that view doesn't make it incorrect. It makes you unrealistic. It is also an inescapable fact that if you outlaw guns, the only guns you'll get will be the law-abiding citizens who weren't the problem in the first place. The criminal element, who represent the greatest danger to society, certainly won't surrender their arms. I tend not to give great credence to bumper sticker philosophy, but it's true that when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. I'm Jewish, and my family lived in Germany before and during WWII. Not of them are left there, BTW, and even as a screaming liberal, I can tell you, I would NEVER surrender my guns.
Gee, what other laws do you advocate eliminating because criminals won't voluntarily comply with them?
If by strength you mean intelligence, then yes, I am here to tell you that the America of today does not have the strength of a decimated Europe of 50 years ago. If by strength you mean military strength, then no, we are not as weak as you were then.
Funny - I never think of John Wayne as a hero. While other movie stars put on uniforms and actually fought in foreign wars, John Wayne dodged the bullet and stayed home to make money. Not a hero in my book.
Yeah - now, Jimmy Stewart - there was a real hero. Not only did he play one in the movies, he volunteered to serve with honor in WWII & Vietnam, and not in some "movie star" squad either - he served in harm's way, for real, flying missions over Germany, ending up in the rank of Major General in the USAF Reserve.
Not unlike Ronald Reagan. Wayne, not Stewart. Wait, this comment makes more sense if you move me in front of Pretzelogic.
If gun laws restrict what can be sold legally, law abiding citizens will obey those laws, criminals will not and only criminals will be armed. Guns do NOT kill people, people kill people. We will never stop the manufacture of firearms of all kinds, so do we really want criminals to be the ony ones with guns? Does voting for gun control laws make a citizen culpable in the murder of citizens at the hands of criminals who got their guns illegally? If a person is not part of the solution, then they are part of the problem.
Betsy, I think you may have left out one or two cliches. Check with the gun industry lobby for even better ones. But you forgot the most important thing: facts. All the statistics show that the more guns a society has per capita, the more people get killed by guns. Not just mass murders, but suicides and accidental killings, too. All collateral damage in the weapons manufacturers' push to make more and more money.
That last statement of yours is true, and YOU are part of the problem.
Nobody is taking about banning guns, we are looking for real answers. You are part of the problem.
"If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns". Nice slogan, but that's OK by me, because that will at least disarm MY NEIGHBORS who all think they are law-abiding citizens, until one of them gets angry, or deranged, or my dog pees on their lawn when they are drunk, or doesn't realize it's their nephew "breaking into" their house at night, or their child discovers daddy's gun, or their gun is stolen. Anyway, guns don't kill people, but they DO make for much more violent arguments.
Your first sentence says, "if gun laws restrict what can be sold legally"... well.. I hate to break it to you, but there are already lots of laws pertaining to the sale and transport of firearms, and law abiding citizen still seem to own and are able to continue to purchase firearms. No one is proposing taking away the right to bear arms. Additionally, criminals still seem to have ample access to plenty of firearms, too. They always will. Criminals will find ways to get around laws. It is the nature of criminality. This does not negate the fact that laws are needed to regulate the general populace. Under your logic, we should have no laws whatsoever. Restricting the size of ammunition magazines, or insisting on background checks on sales at gun shows are NOT taking guns out of law abiding citizen's hands. What you are saying is the most common knee-jerk reaction to ANY talk of gun CONTROL (not abolition). Your post has every regurgitated cliche the gun lobby has ever said. As to the old chestnut, "guns don't kill people, people kill people". Yes.. this is true. People have and always will kill and hurt each other, but what is wrong in limiting or regulating how many people can be killed in a few seconds? And, by spouting all these cliches, how exactly are you being part of the solution?
Just how many mass murders are commited without guns? How many people killed a full couple of dozen people in less than a minute with a bow? Or a sword? Let's really push it and ask how many people Bruce Lee could have killed in one minute.
Betsy, you are full of crap.
What Jane said...
If the speed limit restricts how fast you can drive, law abiding citizens will obey those laws, criminals will not and only criminals will be speeding. So, clearly the solution is to let everyone drive as fast as they want.
And remember, cars don't kill people. I mean, they just sit there until someone starts it.
But yes, if something is a crime, the people committing the crime are the criminals.
Helllooooo from Austin, Texas--home of the UT Tower. From what I can see, the 'armed civilians' didn't really stop too much devastation and the one armed civilian that went to the tower did so WITH POLICE COVER. This is a long shot actually.
SHOULD someone have shot Loughner? Then we wouldn't have the nasty expense of a 'fair trial'. And the shooter in the Tower had ALREADY BEEN TRAINED TO USE HIS WEAPON TO KILL BY THE UNITED STATES MARINES. This Fact is PROUDLY pointed out by Marine drill instructors to this very day. Same as Lee Harvey Oswald. These were NOT amateurs with weapons. These were TRAINED Shooters.....I don't really believe that ANY Civilian opening fire in that shopping center parking lot on that day would have done anything but added to the confusion. A TRAINED police officer doesn't start indiscriminately returning fire and especially NOT in a situation like that. Remember--the ONE CITIZEN that had the safety off his gun and was ready to shoot, ALMOST SHOT ONE OF THE PEOPLE WHO DISARMED LOUGHNER. That would have been a really sad situation. Much sadder than it already is. Nope! I don't think that armed citizens everywhere I go is protection from harm. I believe it to be a ticket to a greater disaster.
Oh well said! The untrained civilian in a panic situation.....this will result in so many more dead in future such scenarios. Sadly, with the NRA having more money than God, and the "Citizens United" thing....it doesn't look good for any sort of gun control.
However, kudos to the show for such good info on how ridiculous the U.S. gun laws are. I had NO idea that automatic weapons were legal in any capacity for a civilian. Wow! These are laws that definitely need to be changed, it's just hard to keep hope up for any change on these policies. Never thought I'd hear the Dick actually state that perhaps the extended magazine needs to be outlawed again, so I guess I shouldn't give up all hope eh?!!
Kathy, Loughner didn't have an automatic weapon. He had to pull the trigger each time he wanted to fire a bullet. As for untrained civilians, Arizona is the only state in the union that allows untrained civilians to carry concealed weapons. Illinois is now the only state that doesn't permit ANY civilians to carry concealed weapons. In the rest of the states, the civilian carrying weapons ARE trained. As a former correction officer involved in prisoner transport, I was trained and armed by the county sheriff. The correct training is neither expensive nor odiously long, and it includes marksmanship under pressure. If you can't pass it, you can't carry. It's that simple. When we outlaw cars, which kill more people than guns, you'll have my vote to outlaw guns. Of course, then we'll be both immobile and defenseless.
I live in Canada, where guns are a lot more rare than they are in the U.S. I don't associate with people who own guns. A gun will never be allowed in my house, nor in the houses of the people I care about. To have a gun in your possession is asking for something to happen as a direct result. Guns do not protect. Guns kill.
You have sane gun laws in Canada. We don't. You have Aero bars in Canada. We don't. And people talk about American exceptionalism. Harumph.
I have to get my Aero bars from Irish import sites, terrible indeed.
Axes kill people, knives kill people, rocks kill people if used by other people but only guns allow one person to kill so many without the coward having to get close enough for the victim to fight back.
No one had a gun on 9/11. Al Qaeda and the Taliban prove that you don't need guns to kill people, and they prove it on a daily basis. Why all the excitement about guns, but not a word about the most effective killing machine in our society, the automobile? Guns are mindless tools, like hammers. When you figure out how to disarm the criminals, come talk to me. Until then, I won't be disarmed by your unrealistic view of the world.
@Betsy Rogers
Do you have some kind of pro-gunisms template?
If gun laws restrict what can be sold legally, law abiding citizens will obey those laws, criminals will not and only criminals will be armed.
Every 'illegally' owned gun starts off as a legally owned gun which eventually makes it's way through the grey and black market into the hands of people who buy them solely to commit crimes. Also consider the number of guys who decide to shoot their wife/ex-wife/girlfriend/ex-girlfriend/the kids who go from being a 'law abiding gun owner' to a 'murderer' in a few minutes. Plus, all the accidental shootings from kids playing with their parents legally owned guns. The NRA argument is always: acceptable losses.
It cannot be 'verified' because my Daddy is gone. But I was at a gas station (looking pretty pretty) at two in the morning, going to report for my next duty station. Thank the Lord I was in the company of my Father who was still in unifrom and wearing his 45. These three scary men pulled up five feet away and watched me at the pumps never shutting off their vehicle. My Daddy stepped out of the station and walked towards me and these guys threw their truck into gear and raced away into the dark.
Probably had more to do with the uniform than the gun.
And if they had known that the 'uniform' wasn't armed, Charlie?
Remember the comma in the second amendment? It is one sentence and each part is a piece of the whole.
Check it out in reverse order, which is easy to do with a comma ... can't with a period;
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State.
(Notice State being capital ... refers to nation)
The original second amendment didn't actually give the individual the right to own a gun. It was more of a message to all the states; if we don't have militias and guns our neighbors will kick our asses. There was no army at the time.
Interesting how the word "people" is used instead of "soldier" or "militiaman" or "police" or some other word associated with an occupational title that uses firearms in their duties.
Your comma logic could also be construed to an entirely different conclusion.
The right of people to keep and bear Arms being necessary to the security of a free State, a well regulated militia shall not be infringed.
The original 2nd Amendment, which is the one we're still talking about, actually DID give the people the right to bear arms. During the Revolution, the militia was made up of everyone who owned a gun, and that was almost everyone. Remember, there was no Department of Defense in those days.
Two point - the second amendment does not provide the right - it states clearly that the right will not be infringed. Subtle but important difference. The Constitution and amendments define and limit government powers. We have rights because we are human beings possessed of liberty and free will.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident . . . " It's also worth noting the text of the ninth amendment. "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
The militia was comprised of every man between 16 and 60 and anybody who could keep up. The expectation was that men of military age would maintain their own firearm and kit suitable for military use and would report when called. Firearms ownership was an expectation - one might even say compulsory.
If we're so safe with all the guns, why are we 8 times more likely per capita to be murdered by someone with a gun?
Link to CBC report:
In order to shoot Loughner, from my understanding of the logistics, he would have had to been shot in front of the Safeway grocery store with a huge glass window. If you missed, you would be taking a chance on hitting someone inside the Safeway. Seriously, people can fantasize about how they would have done it, but in the space of about 15 seconds he went through 30 bullets! In the confusion, you would have to drop to the ground, locate your gun, take off the safety, and FIND the gunman in the crowd. By the time all that was accomplished, he would have stopped firing and the unarmed citizens who disarmed him would be busy doing that! I really don't think an armed citizen, trained or untrained in the skill of killing humans professionally could have stopped the gunman.
Loughner had the "luxury" of shooting indiscriminately into a wildly dispersing crowd. An armed citizen, responding, would have to shoot through the same crowd.
A citizen with the training provided in 48 of the states would have been able, if he were in the correct position, to have drawn, aimed, and fired in less time than it took Loughner to empty his magazine. Unfortunately, Arizona doesn't require that training. The fact that the one armed bystander had good judgment doesn't make the carrying of firearms by trained individuals any less an effective deterrent.
This cannot be 'verified' because my Father is gone. But I was (looking pretty pretty) at a gas station at two in the morning about to report my next duty station. Thankfully I was with my Dad. These three scary looking guys pulled up about ten feet away. They did not shut off their engine and it was weird the way they just stared at me. I was very vulnerable alone filling up at the pump and they knew it. Then my Daddy stepped out of the station wearing his 45 and these gentlemen threw the truck in gear and raced away into the dark. My Daddy and the 45 get equal credit for saving me I think.
Pamela, I'm giving more credit to just your father...just sayin'.
I wouldn't discount the value of the 45. Like the quote attributed to Al Capone: you get more out of people with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone.
and the uniform not mentioned in this version
If you choose not to have a gun in your house/possession that if fine, but I don't want to be a victim. I don't want my family to get hurt buy someone who does not care for their rights. A gun is a too, one of many I use to keep my family safe.
I don't think that citizens with guns will stop the crazy individuals in our society that want to do harm to people in groups, but that can be a very effective 'personal' defense. They are dangerous and need to be used properly. Owning a gun is a great responsibility. You can't act like you see in the movies.
If you really want to stop violence in America then I think we should concentrate on the violence and why people act violently. Whether they use a gun or a bomb or an airplane is irrelevant and detracts from solving the problem.
See the case of Joseph Zamudio, who arrived on the scene with his gun drawn and almost mistakenly shot an innocent person who also had his gun drawn. Who do you shoot when everyone else has guns drawn?
Look at the case of Joseph Zamudio, who was at the Tucson shooting who almost mistakenly shot an innocent bystander who also had a gun drawn. Who do you shoot when others have guns drawn? A policeman's dilemna.
Now: let's look for examples of similar situations where heroic, armed individuals added their firepower to the fray and actually got MORE innocent people killed. I have a feeling they'll be easier to find. Give added relevance if:
* our hero directly added to the list of innocent victims;
* our hero ultimately became one of the victims;
* our hero ended up shooting one or more other armed or unarmed heroes who were also trying to help, particularly if law enforcement, fire fighting or military personnel, possibly making the situation worse and delaying the cessation of the violence, not to mention taking professional heroes out of service for future needs;
* the bad guy(s) acquired our hero's weapon(s) and were thereby able to inflict even more damage because they now had a fresh firepower w/o having to reload.
---
Given the basic chaotic nature of events of this type and given the intense, difficult-to-control and irrevocable nature of firearms in general, the combination produces a situation with high probabilities for poor outcomes. With each added armed 'heroic' citizen who is NOT a highly trained and experienced professional but who thinks shooting at people will somehow make things better, those probabilities get worse - exponentially. Arming the populace as a means of deterring violence is just a small scale "mutual annihilation" treaty with a hair trigger and serves to transform a single point of outward violence with multiple solution vectors into an malformed ad-hoc "circular firing squad" with lots of innocent souls in harm's way and few chances for a happy outcome.
Just a thought.
Guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people.
The constitution says you may "bear arms" as part of a well-regulated militia. Otherwise, not so much.
And by "arms," they meant muskets, not Glocks or AK-47s. Remember, it was 1789, not 1989!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCXtfR0_roE&feature=&p=C4B53E6700D79133&index=0&playnext=1
Problem Solver: In the 18th Century, technology had delivered only a single shot rifle. There were no cartridges; everything was reloaded by hand. To suggest that the Constitution meant to apply only to single-shot weapons is a ridiculous assertion. The musket was the military firearm. Today the M-16 is the military firearm. It is semi-automatic (and 3-shot automatic in the military version). It has a 20 round magazine. The Constitution makes no exceptions for different types of weapons.
Also, you really should understand the difference between a dependent and an independent clause. The Second Amendment does not say you get a firearm if you are a member of the militia, it says that because the young country needed a militia (the dependent clause) the right to keep and bear arms "shall not be infringed" by the central government. The 14th Amendment made that proscription applicable to the states. And at the time of the Constitution, all adult males under age 40 were considered to be part of the militia, which was defined as "the entire body of physically fit civilians eligible by law for military service." "Congress shall have power to provide for calling forth the militia"--United States Constitution
Finally, but for the second amendment, the first amendment (and the rest of the document that vests power in the people) would be meaningless.
Ah, and there's the catch 22 isn't it?
First the argument is the need for the people to protect themselves against criminals.
Then the second argument is the need for the people to protect themselves against the government.
The purpose of regulating and restricting access to guns is to protect the people from gun crimes, which gun rights advocates claim is government overreach. So, gun rights advocates want to hinder the government's the ability to protect the people from crimes while arguing civilians need guns to protect themselves against crimes.
Or in other words, gun rights advocates are actually advocating an anarchist state in which armed civilians take the law into their own hands.
If I had my choice between a police officer or an armed civilian on the scene, I'd choose the police officer. If the argument then is there aren't enough police officers, I'd ask why that is. Perhaps they are too busy arresting people for possession of marijuana and checking people's immigration papers.
No one is talking about the cause of American violence. Just a tool used in it. (guns) There are a few factors no one wants to admit.
1.) Human beings are just animals, who rose to the top of the food chain by our sheer propensity for killing things efficiently.
2.) The Universe was build by violence, it is at the core of everything.
3.) The glamorization of violence, and the worship of horrible deeds.
4.) Humans will never shed the urge to kill. We destroy and consume... it's what we do.
We are not exceptional beings, we cannot control the evils in some human beings, this will never change.
Culture of violence, we see it on t.v., in movies, we hear it in our music, read in our books, and live it in our video games. Maybe we should discuss those things also?
That's what I said last night! D:
You're blowing my mind...
When I was stationed in Germany in 1969 I found out that guns/rifles were not really permitted in private homes. People joined Rod & Gun clubs and their rifles were kept at the club not at home. I don't know how true was then or what the situation is like now.
That would not have been the case if German society had the number of armed criminals roaming the streets as we have.
Pete946,
out of interest why do you think European countries, such as Germany, have fewer armed criminals roaming the streets than the US has?
imogenfm,
being from the german-speaking part of Europe, I can tell you it's not due to the amount of guns.
In Germany there are about 10 million legal (as in registered/licensed) guns in possession of hunters, collectors, competitive shooters and the like. Getting a license is quite a task, can take years and costs quite a bit of money and once you get one, you're required to keep the ammo locked in a safe, with the gun locked in another (!) safe. That way, using it for self-defense is almost impossible. At home that is - for legally carrying a handgun, you'd need yet another license which is impossible to get unless you're working as a security guard or something like that.
German gun laws are as restrictive as it gets, short of a complete ban.
That's one of the reasons why the number of illegal guns is estimated to be somewhere around 20 millions, according to the police. Total: 30 million guns, two-thirds of them illegal.
If you encounter a criminal in Germany, you can be pretty sure he's armed (and you aren't). People also get shot and Germany also had their share of school shootings. The difference is, in Germany there's less poverty than in the US, therefore less violence and most importantly, less gang crime (which is where most gun-related homicides in the US come from).
Guns are just tools, in Europe just like in the US.
Man has not always been violent; only since agriculture began and he had something to defend. Before that time, humans lived in small hunter-gatherer groups and shared their food, their belongings, and their homes.
I prefer to live in trust of my fellow citizens. Crazy people will wreak their havoc with or without guns, but home invasion with the intent to kill is very rare. Even the "In Cold Blood" story illustrates this -- the men hwo invaded the home did not do that with the intention to kill everyone, and they regretted what they had done. The paranoia with which Americans such as the above one, regard their fellow Americans does not only poison the atmosphere with guns, but with everything else as well.
If people all over the world killed their fellow citizens at the rate we do, I might accept the "violence is at the core of everything" argument, but they don't. We kill 8 or more times as many of our fellow human beings as anywhere else on earth; more even than some countries at war. 10,000 a year. That's almost three times the number of casualties we suffered in Iraq over all the years we have been there. And that is only the number killed; for every person killed, there are many wounded, crippled, disabled.
Man has ALWAYS been violent. Those small hunter-gatherer groups you speak of certainly didn't live in peace with anyone intruding on their turf. Many remains of ancient humanoids have been uncovered with wounds and holes in their skulls. The idea of peace-loving nomads, wandering through the antediluvian pastoral countrywide is a fiction right out of the movies and cartoons.
Here's a story from the Cleveland Plain Dealer that has some bearing on this discussion, but has a much larger impact on the issue of extended magazine clips. Last night, armed Cleveland Police officers shot and killed an assailant, who was suspected of car theft. The assailant shot several rounds at the officers and then initially escaped. As police were searching for him, a home owner tipped off the police that the assailant was in his back yard. The police confronted the assailant in the driveway. The assailant had a mac-9 semiautomatic hand gun, with a 30 round clip. When police attempted to disarm the him by firing a tazer, the assailant opened fire, wounding one of the police officers. The police shot and killed the assailant. The wounded officer is recovering.
Here is a link to the story:
#incart_hbx
Two things. First, this gun and the clip are very similar to the one used by Mr. Loughner. It's not clear how many rounds were fired, but that's likely something that can be found out from the Cleveland police department. One wonders if the assailant in this case had a magazine of only 10 rounds or less, whether he would have had a round left when he fired the shot that hit the Cleveland police officer.
So, we have in the course of one month, two criminals, using nearly identical weapons to fire upon, wound, and in one case, kill public officials in their line of duty. In both cases, an extended magazine holding 30 rounds of ammunition was used. In Loughner's case, if he had a smaller magazine, lives would have been saved. In the case, perhaps when the criminal fired on the officer, he would have run out of ammunition. More reporting on the story from Cleveland may help push forward the proposed ban on extended magazine clips.
Second, it's also clear from this story that hand guns in the hands of good people can stop bad people from killing others. People will say this case is different because it was the police that were involved and no one is proposing that we disarm the police. This case, however, illustrates that the general principal does work and it worked as recently as last night.
More needs to be done to keep guns out of the hands of bad people. Even NRA members that I talk to agree with that. I don't think much progress will be made in limiting the concealed carry laws or open carry laws. We may be able to improve those laws to help ensure that only law abiding citizens obtain concealed carry permits, but to eliminate them altogether is not likely to make much progress.
We should focus efforts on the extended magazines and on keeping guns out of the hands of the wrong people. I believe there will be a ton of political support for both.
As I posted before, I think a ban on "high capacity" magazines is a sensible measure. After reading Rep. McCarthy's proposed bill this morning, the part that concerns me is the transfer of magazines portion. I think it may cause some problems for even people trying to obey the law.
The first example that comes to mind is estate transfers. Dad dies and leaves his entire estate to his son, which include some standard capacity magazines for a 9mm (15 rounds). Under the letter of the proposed bill, this is illegal. What does the son do? Who is the legal authority to determine the status of the magazines? Can they be turned in to law enforcement (transfer of ownership, also illegal)?
The 2nd example, similar to the first, is if a person is killed in an accident, or a soldier killed in combat...an unplanned death, in other words. Either with a will or without, what happens to the magazines that now are illegal to transfer ownership?
The 3rd thing that comes to mind is the hypothetical owner who wants to be responsible and dispose of the magazines that are now illegal to transfer. Say I want to get rid of the magazines for my handgun that hold 13 rounds and get ones that hold 10, right? How do I get rid of the old ones without "illegally transferring ownership?" I can't turn them in to the sheriff, that's transfer of ownership. The only thing I can come up with is destruction, say hit them with a sledgehammer.
I'm not saying there isn't a solution, I just think this particular part of the bill may be problematic for people?
I'm going to write to my representative and see if he will talk to Rep McCarthy about this. Not that I've had a lot of luck before with this kind of thing.
this is hair splitting.
First example: Dad dies, leaves his entire estate to his son, which includes his stash of marijuana (let's say a pound).....
That's why there is a process before a proposed bill becomes law.
A process that, as an engaged citizen, I want to be involved in.
It's not hairsplitting to discuss the impacts of a proposed new law. Or if it is, a little more hairsplitting would be a good idea.
You know, like trying to figure out how much mercury is going to end up in the ground water from all those CFL bulbs.
Or causing an environmental and health disaster by putting MTBE in gasoline to reduce air pollution.
Yeah, no point in splitting hairs.