LITTLE ROCK — The debate we’d like to hear-a debate without all the hollering, hyperbole and hysteria-is one about the size of magazines for guns. Who needs 30-round clips anyway? If you need that many shots to take down a deer, you shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a gun. We don’t get the feeling that when the designer of the 30-round clip put the thing together, he thought, “Wow, this would be great in a squirrel rifle, too.” Those super-sized magazines were made to shoot rounds at a target, fast, without having to stop and reload. Unfortunately, as we learn again and again, sometimes the targets move and scream and beg for mercy.
-Arkansas Democrat-Gazette December 21, 2012 THAT WAS our considered opinion just after the school massacre in Newtown, Conn. That horror is still in the news-or at least the debate over how to prevent any more is still in the news. Who said Americans had short attention spans?
When some nutcase kills 20 kids just before Santa is to visit, it’s something even the most jaded among us have a hard time forgetting. Good. Never forget. Those kids deserve at least that much. Just as the kids at Columbine and Jonesboro, Ark., should never be forgotten.
The president has come out with a proposal-several, actually-to address this question: How protect our kids, and the rest of us, without trampling a basic right that Americans have come to embrace over the past 225 years or so?
Some of the president’s suggestions are just plain baffling to anybody who knows anything about guns. Like a ban on “assault weapons.” How’s that going to help? Because the main differences between assault weapons and regular rifles are cosmetic. Does the government want to ban one kind of rifle because it’s black and has a strap? How’s that going to help? The regular non-assault rifles shoot just as fast and can be more powerful. Much more powerful.
The president also says he wants to create more desk jobs at the Centers for Disease Control to track the problem. Tracking isn’t the same thing as fixing.
Last month, the president’s people also put out word that he’s thinking about legislation to limit the size of magazines that guns could have.
Good. Finally. Now we have an idea that makes some sense on some level and we can start the debate.
So let’s start it.
How would your proposal help, Mr. President?
While the recent shootings have given many of us reason to limit how many rounds magazines can hold, there’s still one minor question with such legislation:
Will it work?
Does the president’s plan to limit the size of magazines include taking large clips off the streets, or would he ban only new sales? If his plan includes taking existing magazines off the street, how enforce that? The kind of folks who would hand over 20- or 30- or 40-round clips just because the government asks for them aren’t the kind of folks anybody needs to worry about.
If the president is proposing a ban on new sales of high-capacity clips, then how long do you think it’ll take for those already in circulation to break, rust or get lost? A century? Maybe two?
So again we’re back to the central question, Mr. President: Will it work?
It’s past time to have this debate. And we look forward to the letters to the editor and some dirty looks at the duck camp.
Some of us are already on board with some of your ideas, Mr. President, but you’re going to have to do a better job of explaining how they would help. Or if they would.
Limit magazine size? Sounds almost reasonable. Now, Mr. President, tell us exactly how this would go down. You know, give us some details. And don’t forget who’s in the details, either. Even in your brave new world, Old Ned still lurks.
Editorial, Pages 14 on 02/21/2013