The recent San Bernardino shooting shows the stupidity of some of California’s signature gun laws. Laws that are obeyed by the law-abiding citizens and ignored by the local criminal or terrorist.
California has a ten day waiting period from the time you purchase a firearm until the time you can pick it up. This may prevents spur of the moment events or reduce suicides, but does little to reduce crime. Actually, research has shown that it doesn’t reduce suicides, it just changes the method.
Most terrorists are on a pretty long timeline; they’re not in a hurry. So waiting ten days to pick up a brand new, quality firearm doesn’t slow them down. The “alleged” San Bernardino shooter bought the two pistols used in the attack four years prior.
To limit the amount of casualties a person can cause, California limits all magazines to ten rounds. The San Bernardino shooters chose to ignore this law and obtained 30 round magazines, available in 42 of the 50 States.
Military type rifles are designed to be reloaded quickly, an advantage in a firefight. Skilled and practiced shooters can drop an empty magazine and reload a full one in just seconds.
Again, to limit the amount of casualties a person can cause, California mandates that the magazine release button on AR15’s be replaced by the manufacturer with a “bullet button”. Most people have no idea what this is. With a bullet button, in order to release the magazine, a “tool” is required to push the button and release the magazine. The tool could be a screwdriver, ballpoint pen or the point of a bullet (hence the name). To reload an AR15 with a bullet button installed, the shooter must:
- Turn the weapon on its side
- Retrieve “the tool” from pocket or pouch
- Observe while guiding the tool to the button (taking eyes off target)
- Push the button releasing the magazine
- Place the tool back in pocket or pouch for the next reload
- Retrieve a full magazine from pocket or pouch
- Insert magazine into magazine well
- Press bolt release or pull charging handle to load round into chamber
- Re-shoulder weapon, take aim, engage target
It’s a pretty awkward process. The theory behind this device is that after a shooter expends ten rounds from his California legal magazine, it will take long enough to reload for some intended victims to escape or counter-attack the shooter.
Of course, if the victims were armed they could defend themselves. But California has pretty much insured that won’t happen, which provides a safe working environment for criminals and terrorists.
In the San Bernardino incident, the shooters simply (and illegally) replaced the bullet button with the standard magazine release button. I guess when you are planning mass murder, violating a California gun law isn’t a big deal; nor is it a deterrent.
So what purpose did these laws serve? They didn’t prevent the crime or reduce the number of casualties. These laws only apply to the law-abiding citizens that obey them. Does anyone really believe that a person bent on murder will obey a gun law?
Law-abiding citizens don’t plan on using their weapons to commit crimes. So in the immortal words of The Hillary, “What does it matter” if they have a ten round magazine or a hundred round magazine, they’re not going to commit a crime.
It’s not the guns, how many rounds they hold, or how fast you can reload them; it’s the intent of the person pulling the trigger.