I
was at the Colorado State Capitol hearings all day on Feb 19. We had a very
strong turnout, but I heard the deal had already been done before hearings
began. The original proposition was 10-round maximum capacity on rifle and
pistol magazines and 5-round capacity on tubular shotgun magazines. It was
amended and passed as a 15-round capacity on rifle/pistol mags and 8-round
capacity on tubular shotgun magazines. .22 long rifle tubular magazines were
exempted from the bill.
Colorado-based magazine manufacturer Magpul’s CFO testified against all the
restrictions and said the company is considering leaving the state (potential
loss of 700 jobs plus $48mil in annual revenue.) That made the committee sit up and
take notice, but in the long run it didn't change their minds.
As
a political refugee from Britain (formerly Great) I’m opposed to disarming
law-abiding citizens. It transforms them eventually from proud, free citizens
to groveling subjects. In Britain gun control legislation began with the Pistol act of 1903 anyone wishing to buy a pistol commercially
merely had to purchase a license on demand over the counter from a post office
before doing so.
That sounds
reasonable, doesn’t it?
In fact, any time you see the word “reasonable” used to
describe pending legislation, it should be a warning of worse things to come. “Reasonable”
really means “just the first step designed to get a bill passed into law,
because a less reasonable bill would fail.”
Reasonable-sounding bills often get
amended later on to be far less reasonable.
In Britain,
the next piece of legislation was The
Firearms Act of 1920 A firearm certificate had to be granted by the chief
officer of police before a gun could be acquired.
Still reasonable? Perhaps,
but only for people who don’t understand that (as declared in the United States
Bill of Rights: Second Amendment) gun ownership is a right, and not subject to
the whim of a public servant.
After a
couple of mass shooting in England and Scotland, The Firearms Amendment Act of 1988 banned the ownership of semi-automatic centre-fire rifles and restricted the use
of shotguns with a capacity of more than three cartridges (in magazine plus the
breech). And the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997
was enacted, which effectively made private ownership of handguns illegal in
the United Kingdom.
Personal
freedom in the UK was finally dead.
Meanwhile,
not only have violent crimes in Britain (formerly Great) skyrocketed, but the
fall of the Soviet Union provided a huge number of eastern European weapons to
enter Britain illegally, and end up on the streets. Estimates today are that
there are far more illegal guns in Britain than ever were legally held.
Anti-gun,
anti-personal freedom legislators would do well to heed the lessons of history.
