From 1994 until 2004 the American firearms industry suffered under a form of prohibition. The “Assault Weapons Ban” not only covered weapon features but also magazines over 10 rounds. This legislation did nothing to alter crime and, once lifted did not result in any increased gun violence. Overall, it was useless legislation.
These very magazines and weapon features that were banned under the “Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994” have been crucial to the US Department of Defense’s and our Allies small modernization as part of operations in Iraq as well as globally against piracy, terror and general mayhem. During the 10-year period of the AWB, US businesses curtailed small arms innovation. The point of a business is to make money. When there is little market for a product (as was the case during the AWB), the business case is not there to service it. This was most definitely the situation with magazines for the M9 Beretta Handgun. Many who served early in the war will remember poorly produced high capacity magazines for that weapon. This is because there was no competition in the marketplace due to a lack of market. Rather, government contractors for that magazine were able to produce products that performed poorly on the battlefield. There was no competition. There was no innovation.
Since the ban was lifted, an entire industry has grown and flourished, producing innovative solutions for both law abiding citizens and our military alike. American troops are the best equipped in the world and other countries look to us for technical innovation in small arms.
On the heels of the tragedy in Aurora, Colorado, opportunistic members of Congress have attached an amendment to (S.A. 2575) to the “Cybersecurity Act” (S. 3414) that would once again restrict these magazines that are critical to our military.
Contact your Congressional representation (switchboard 202-225-3121) and let them know how you feel about this proposed legislation and the hijacking of the Cybersecurity Act by opportunists. A strong American firearms industry contributes directly to our National Defense.
Unfortunately this new legislation is the result of fear, anger and sorrow caused by all such tragedies. However well meaning the response may be, any reactionary measures enacted by highly distraught or emotional person will end up being just as harmful to society in the long run. Perhaps we do need news laws or safety measures put in place, but that desision should be made after careful thought, critical analysis by calm individuals well removed from the tragedy. My heart certainly goes out to the victims and those affected by this madness but calm heads and clear thought needs to rule here, not rage and sorrow.
Just saying… For whatever it’s worth.
I actually doubt that this was the work of emotionally distraught persons due to the Aurora outrage. rather, I think it was more the case that this was cynically and opportunistically instigated by people who were just waiting for a “reason” to try and push this kind of ban through…
Just wrote mine.
DOA in the House of Representatives. Relax…
That’s what we’re all counting on.
I’d like to add the band put American soldiers at risk. In 2003 going into the Iraqi invasion, M9 magazines where in short supply from the Marine Corps. Machine Gunners going into the invasion at the “tip of the spear” couldn’t get more then 3 magazines for their M9s. We were told it could be three months before we got a resupply, so we carried as much ammo as we could get our hands on. Multiple Machine Gunners bought their own M9 magazines, but could only get 10 round ones legally. So American Marines went into battle to defend this country and they couldn’t even buy the equipment they wanted. It was pathetic. We had some police officers step up and risk federal crimes by loaning my Marines pistol magazines. Nice!
Thanks Ben!
Sounds like a lovely story. Multiple machine gunners! How many? Nice generalities. Specifics would be welcome.
That is an example of short-sighted USMC logistics, not the AWB. If the AirForce can manage the JSF program potentially worth billions, why can’t the Marine Corps manage the acquisition of sufficient high capacity magazines without having to plunder limited civilian resources.
What is available to the military for war fighting should have absolutely no bearing on what is available to a deranged university student with homicidal intent. If the military hierarchy can’t get it’s act together, then they ought to fire them.
I can’t get over the fact that there are still people out there who would rather nut cases like Holmes can get access to high capacity magazines that put the public and law enforcement at increased risk than entertain the idea of life without access to 30 round magazines. Why does anyone who is not fighting a war need a 30 round magazine?
How many of you guys have actually had to face a heavily armed active shooter on the streets of your home town? Patrolling the street of middle America should not be the same as fighting a war in Iraq or Afghanistan. Yet that is what you seem to want your local police to have to do. How about you learn to change magazines more often and make my job, and life, a little safer? Or are you really that selfish?
Glenno, to be blunt, your email address is from Australia. Considering your country’s track record on military small arms development as well as civilian ownership of guns, I really have to take your comments with a pound of salt. Just a grain ain’t gonna do it mate.
I take you bluntness as an invitation to respond accordingly. SSD, you show both your bias and your ignorance by trying to ‘out’ me in order to prove a point. Yes, my email address is Australian. So? Americans live all around this big world these days. Feel a little silly now?
Why don’t you stick to the issues? No, instead you try to denigrate my opinion by introducing the irrelevance of small arms development. No country I can think of has a perfect history in any area of technological development, but so what? What is your point? What has that got to do with the points I made?
With a brother police officer lying critically wounded in hospital in Oakcreek as a result of the latest in a seemingly endless line of ASI incidents, I repeat how many of you have actually had to face a heavily armed active shooter on the streets of your home town? If you want to fight a war, Afghanistan is still available. Why facilitate it on the streets of America and out the rest of he population and the police in harms way so you can ‘feel safe’?
Or do you just like romancing your ego while you sit around in your camos cleaning your AR15 with your Desert Eagle strapped to your leg? Wake up and smell what you are standing in. I at least have the advantage of having experienced a country where the crazies can’t get a gun and even the sharpest criminals find it difficult.
I await your next attempt at irrelevance.
I think what SSD was trying to say was, ” taking an Australian’s advice on guns is like asking a fag how to fuck a woman.”
You are another one of these simpletons who blames inanimate objects for carnage.
Since your position is anti-gun, have you perhaps tried to persuade your American LE friends to put their guns down in favor of night sticks? It would be disingenuous if you didn’t now wouldn’t it?
It sucks you have a “buddy” in hospital, but he isn’t there because of a weapon. He’s there because someone shot him. And despite that being against the law it didn’t seem to dissuade the perp.
Glenno it sounds like to me you should stay in Australia where it’s safer for people like you
Larry, you know nothing of me, other than I have a view on matters that may well not accord with your own. I, on the other hand, googled you and know that you make your living off pandering to the insecurities of others with enough money to pay for your services. So it seems that I know more about you than you know about me. So how do you former SFcolleagues view the fact that you sell your knowledge and skills to people who just might use it against your former SF colleagues somewhere down the road?
Just to clarify something, I happen to have kept an Australian email address from my time on exchange downunder because of personal reasons. Like SSD, you make assumptions that lead to you looking silly in public. I presume you are a pretty good shot. Pity your aren’t up to scratch on the analytical side. Still, not really your area of expertise, is it?
I note that your claim to fame is military -not police. Do you really want America to replicate the danger of living in Kabul? I therefore ask you specifically, have you personally ever faced a heavily armed offender on the streets of your home town in an ASI incident? And don’t tell me about all the police you have trained. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. If you have faced a genuine ASI incident as a patrol cop, then you have the basis to argue with me. If you haven’t, then you are yet another theorist talking ****.
How about you close your business down, sign up to a large metro police dept, work the mean streets for a couple of decades and more as a patrol cop, special weapons, criminal investigation, intelligence and training, and then come back to me and tell me you feel the same way about assault rifles and large capacity magazines?
Putting high powered weapons with large magazine capacities in the hands of people with mental problems, radical agenda and social grievances simply puts the lives of my brother law enforcement professionals at unacceptable risk. If you were on the job, it would put you in the same harms way. But you don’t, do you?
The fact that you and your ilk make money providing the training that individuals can then use against other citizens and the peace officers sworn to protect them should lead you to question the morals of your business. And I don’t care if you give discounts to cops. You sell training to people who potentially could take a cop’s life. That makes you potentially a merchant of death, to use that emotive journalistic term. It sounds like the streets would be safer without people like you. Had you ever considered that possibility, Larry?
How about you do the public and the police a big favor and learn to shoot with a 10 round magazine? Better still, how about you teach your students how to do the same? That can be your small but significant contribution to making the streets a little safer and helping me to survive long enough to see my grandchildren grow up and my son (also a cop) see his children grow up.
Over to you Larry, or to whomever becomes your replacement in this discussion. Perhaps the next person will actually address he issues.
Despite your ill conceived notions that magazine bans cut crime, they don’t. And the very existence of them doesn’t encourage crime either. After the sunset of the AWB people didn’t line the streets gunning each other down in crime sprees.
The guy in Aurora used a 100 round mag on his M&P that jammed and actually worked against him. Since he was untrained, he went to his sidearm because he could not get the carbine into action. Had he been trained, he would have been lethal be it with 100 round or 10 round or even a single shot weapon. So long as a shooter can reload, he can be lethal. High capacity magazine or not. Your argument holds zero water.
Thank you ‘Amused’ for arguing the issues.
Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. I didn’t say that magazine bans cut crime. But they do place a small constriction on the potential for harm. They are most certainly not the solution to the problem. But they arguably make a contribution to harm reduction. So my argument does hold some water.
I don’t see one single solution to the problem. Those who do may well be deluding themselves. If a guy is mentally ill, then the most obvious solution is treatment. If that treatment is unavailable or he declines it, then the next recourse needs to be harm minimization. That includes minimizing self harm and the ootential for inflicting harm on others. That is where restricting access to the means by which he can harm others enters to equation. Guns don’t kill people. But some people with guns do use those guns to kill people. So there is a string argument for limiting the potential harm that a gun can do when in the hands of someone with homicidal intent.
Yes, he could drive his car into a crowd on a sidewalk. Yes he could swing an ax on a crowded subway. Do we usually allow people to drive their cars on the sidewalk? No. Nor do we allow people to take axes onto the subway without safeguards. Why? For the protection of the general public. In order to provide a reasonable measure of safety for all, we, society, have created laws to limit the freedom of the individual’s to do anything they like.
My point to Mr Vickers was that he could make a small but significant contribution to the safety of us all by encouraging the use of smaller magazines amongst his student. He is a person with a considerable level of influence. Why not use that influence for public good.
You are entirely correct in stating that as long as a shooter can reload, he can be lethal. Some would say that your observation is an excellent argument for restricting gun ownership to single shot, muzzle loading black powder rifles of the kind used by the Founding Fathers and anticipated in the right to keep and bear arms.
I am not such a person. Let me make that clear. But forcing an active shooter to reload more often arguably goes some small way to increasing his vulnerability to return fire, regardless of who the person is returning that fire, be it cop or concerned citizen.
If you had been present at Aurora or Oakcreek, would you have preferred to face a shooter armed with 10 round magazines that he had to change more often, or 30 or 100 round magazines? Before you answer that, you might want to take the time to consider that you can’t count on every shooter overloading his magazines.
Thank you again for raising interesting points of view. You have my respect for your position and tha manner in which you argue it.
Glenno – we definately have differing points of view which is fine; you are entitled to your point of view as am I
The issue I have with you and countless others like you on the Internet is the fact you hide behind a screen name- you are not willing to stand up and back up your opinion with your real name and be held accountable
Because of that I and others like me discount your opinion as if you are not the type of person to back up your words with your real persona then obviously I have no need to take you or your opinion seriously
In other words be a man and don’t hide behind a screen name – that mere fact makes you and your words meaningless
I am in the twilight of my career and was being a man when you were still in diapers Larry so I don’t need your encouragement. I am accountable every day I go to work. I do, however, respect the rules of the agency for whom I currently work and therefore separate my private views from any association with my employer. Those with whom I personally work know me as Glenno, as do a number of people from other law enforcement agencies. Therefore, I am not hiding. I am simply respecting the rules of my employment, just as you were required to do when still in uniform.
If you don’t like that, then drop a dime and call a friend, but don’t waste it on me because I couldn’t give a damn. But before you decide to make it personal again, just remember, we only have your word for a good deal of what you claim on your website. There are eight million stories in the naked city each night. Yours is just one of them. Somebody else might care to tell it differently.
Myanmar a law enforcement professional with my job to lose if I go public. You are a businessman and therefore may actually have a lot more to lose by taking the personal route. There is an old saying in business – if you make a dozen people happy, if you are lucky, one might tell a friend. But if you make one person unhappy and he happens to be the wrong person, you run the real risk that he will tell the world. Perhaps that is a risk you ought to contemplate before making it personal again, just on the off chance that I or someone else reading this happens to be the wrong person.
Why don’t you just stick to arguing the issues instead of trying to play the man? Who knows, you might actually learn something -or do you already know it all Larry?
An old sergeant I worked for nearly four decades back used to say that a good idea is a good idea, whether it comes from the President, the Congress, the Chief of Police, or the janitor. That still makes sense to me all these years later.
Yet by your own admission Larry, you discount ideas based upon who has them. You and others in this thread were quick to discount my views because you thought I was Australian. In case you hadn’t noticed, Australians have fought beside Americans in just about every major international conflict since WW1. Your attitude is disrespectful towards others who have stood beside America not only during the good times, biut also when times were tough, and you really need to take a long hard look at why you feel that way.
If you want to argue with the views I put, then do so. If you want to ‘out’ all those who put ideas forward on the Internet, then start a separate thread. You might want to start by being evenhanded and asking the others on this discussion to publish their full details. Or are you only interested in outing those who disagree with you? It seems that you and SSD share a number of traits in common in that regard. He abused his position in order to suppress a view with which he did not agree. You might want to think about what kind of man would do such a morally questionable act.
Why don’t you grow up and stop trying to be the school yard bully? You are not in the army any longer. You are just a plain old citizen, without even the power afforded by a badge. I will give your ideas and arguments respect, whether I agree with them or not. But you get zero respect for your current approach. Instead, you merely give your competitors and detractors ammunition to use against your business and you personally. Kind of foolish!
Before I close, I will make a prediction. I bet that right now you are wishing you hadn’t tried the “I’m Larry Vickers” approach when you first entered this discussion. If it had worked you would have been a ‘hero’ in your own mind. But it didn’t work and now you have the Internet to contend with. And you know what they say about the Internet – put information out there once and it is out there forever. How many customers can you afford to lose by being disrespectful to others and their views?
Yep, analysis is not really your strong suit is it Larry? You might consider some personal development in that area. After all, you won’t be able to trade on your Panama exploits forever. Eventually there will be competition from younger, fitter, more recently retired grunts with more current and relevant experience and skill sets. It is a question that ex-military and ex-police share – What do we do when we are too old to ‘run-and-gun’. Hint – time to get the brain working!
As predicted….. Age doesn’t make you a man; actions do
Your actions speak volumes
LAV out
As you wish, Larry. I must say, however that your petulance does not become you. Neither does your feeble attempt at a parting judgement.
You obviously don’t have it in you to withdraw from a disagreement with dignity. It seems that both your actions and your words shout your insecurity.
Such a pity. Never mind, it is as I previously highlighted, now on the internet for all the world to judge your depth, or lack thereof.