Monday, Aug. 19, 2019 | 2 a.m.
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Decades ago, legendary Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko claimed, with tongue firmly in cheek, that he had founded the National Association for the Legalization of Machine guns, Bazookas, Hand Grenades, Cannons, Land Mines and Anything Else That Goes Boom.
It might be time to get the group going again.
That’s how I feel after reading some of the responses to a question I asked in a recent column, which was: Why does anyone need a 100-round magazine like the one used in the Dayton massacre? To put it another way, why shouldn’t they be illegal?
The response from Dean, retired from Army Special Forces, was typical of a few readers. He said larger-capacity magazines should be legal simply because hobbyists enjoy using them. “This concept is called ‘freedom,’ ” he wrote.
Which brings me back to that column from Royko, whose satirical association was about pointing out the lunacy of thinking our right to bear arms covers every weapon known to man. Hand grenades and cannons also might be a blast, pun intended, but that doesn’t mean we should be able to buy them at Walmart. That “freedom” should be limited.
Despite libertarian leanings, I feel the same way about large-capacity magazines, which are now illegal, to varying degrees, in nine states. They are too dangerous, as the Dayton massacre makes clear. The madman was able to kill nine and wound dozens in just 30 seconds.
Large-capacity magazines make it largely impossible to guard against mass killings. In nearly every case, the proverbial “good guy within a gun” isn’t going to end the horror in less than 30 seconds.
From my perspective, a federal ban on high-capacity magazines, which was a component of the federal assault weapons ban of the 1990s, is compromise legislation. Such a restriction doesn’t explicitly outlaw any particular gun (granted, some weapons come standard with large magazines); is clearly constitutional; and avoids the difficult topic of what, exactly, constitutes an assault weapon.
Plus, the few polls, mostly from Quinnipiac, that have asked about large magazines consistently show a strong majority in support of a nationwide ban.
Robert Lewis, a self-described avid hunter, wrote that he “absolutely agrees that large magazines are not necessary, or even desirable, for uses including hunting, target shooting or self-defense. Every hunter knows that the first shot is the best one.”
Obviously, not everybody agrees. David French of the National Review wrote last week that “few things are more frustrating” than being told by know-littles “what I ‘need’ to protect my family.”
In conservative circles, French has been a well-known critic of President Donald Trump and the alt-right, a stance that has made him a target for horrific abuse and fearsome threats. No family should go through what his has.
“Few things concentrate the mind more than the terrifying knowledge that a person might want to harm or kill someone you love,” French wrote. “It transforms the way you interact with the world. It makes you aware of your acute vulnerability and the practical limitations of police protection.”
For French, self-defense means being able to match, if not exceed, whatever firepower a lawless criminal would have.
With sympathy, again, for French’s family, I don’t find the argument especially compelling. Laws that set a 15-round maximum do allow for self-defense.
If you need 100 rounds to defend your home against invaders, you’re in a peck of trouble and will probably need outside help.
And what about the rest of us and our families? As Dayton and so many other mass shootings prove, we are all sitting ducks so long as high-capacity magazines are widely available. Even if we want “good guys with guns” at our schools or churches, they can’t protect us.
No new gun law is a panacea for mass shootings. While the “how” of the massacres is important, so is the “why” — as in, why is there an apparently growing group of young men so disconnected and spiritually lost that they’ll massacre fellow human beings? Why are they so consumed by rage?
We aren’t asking that enough.
The late Royko, by the way, tackled the need for sensible gun regulation in his column for decades, but eventually gave up. After a 1988 shooting spree at a school near his native Chicago, he told readers he’d simply lost hope, given the power and influence of the National Rifle Association.
“I’ve written about the need for effective gun laws on and off for about 25 years, going back to when it wasn’t a fashionable topic,” he wrote. “And I haven’t changed my views. But after 25 years, even I know a losing fight when I see one.”
In a time when even the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School was met by inaction, many of us can sympathize.
Chris Churchill is a columnist for The Albany (N.Y.) Times Union.
