Let’s talk about throwing rocks. I want to be safe, there are living things that want to harm me for various reasons. If I throw a rock at it hard enough and hit it in a place where it really damages it, it will leave me alone. If I am hungry, throwing a rock will kill my next meal. Eons went by with people developing better ways to throw rocks, and defend from thrown rocks. We now know how to get rocks going really fast by burning powder behind the rock in a tight tube. We can direct them various ways, including looking down the tube, looking through a separate attached magnifying tube adjusted to where the rock goes, and figuring where the rock will land through math.
The smallest hand gun to the largest artillery piece are doing the exact same thing, throwing rocks. You may not agree with the idea of throwing rocks, and you may never throw a rock in your life for any reason, but many people will continue to throw rocks. Some will use machines to do so.
People have been competing to see how much bigger/smaller they can make the machine. How much bigger, faster, further they can throw the rock. How much more accurate. People developed different rocks from the soft lead all the way to armor piercing rocks. People developed rocks that are flown by other machines. People developed machines that could throw a lot of rocks at once, or a lot of rocks one after the other faster than you can read these words.
People decided that rock throwing could lead to conquest and we have a race to develop the biggest fastest rock thrower and make as many of them as we can. Rock throwers on wheels or tracks? Rock throwers that fly? Floating rock throwers?
I like rock throwing machines. I have a few. I have put a lot of little rocks on top of some powder and pushed them into the little tubes to hold them in the machine. 200,000 or more little rocks in little tubes to fly down the big machine tube and land where I pointed the big tube.
The “better” machine holds more rocks, throws them faster and more accurately and is easier to use. The machines began as long tubes with people stuffing the powder and rocks down the tube one by one. Then they combined the rock and powder. Then they developed the ability to put the rock in the one end and send it out the other. Then they developed the machine to feed and throw the rocks without the person doing much of anything. Really fast.
If you want to figure out a way to limit the ability of a person the throw rocks, speed and capacity are the ways. My .223 bolt action rifle shoots the exact same rock as an AR-15. My bolt action holds 5, 4 in the magazine, one in the chamber, which is legal for hunting in Oregon. My bolt action fires one round with one trigger pull, then I need to operate the bolt to eject the empty case and load a new round. When I have shot all five rounds, I need to push more rounds into the magazine. Each round requires a loading/unloading and trigger pull.
An AR works on the auto loading principle first developed in the early 1900’s. The classic .45 auto was one of the first to use this system. The recoil from shooting the round forces the bolt back, ejects the spent casing and seats a new round AUTOMATICALLY. The rock thrower never moves off the trigger. AR’s have a full auto setting which will shoot all the rounds in the magazine with one trigger pull. Burst, which will throw three rocks for each trigger pull. Semi-auto which will throw one rock for each trigger pull. Safe, which blocks the trigger.
An AR has a detachable magaizine. Magazines can hold a few or a lot. Magazines have springs in them to put pressure on the rounds so they can be loaded by the machine. Semi-auto AR’s are the main weapon for the domestic terrorists. They hold 20-30 rounds in each magazine easily. The magazines are quick and easy to replace, and thnre you have another unlimited number of rocks to throw as fast and easy as you can bend your finger.
To control the lethality of a person with a rock thrower, limiting the number of rocks easily thrown and the speed with which more can be loaded is the goal.The size of the rock is not what makes the difference, it’s speed for reloads and rate of fire.
I know this works, I was shooting competitively during the assault rifle ban of the 90’s. Everyone had a 10 round magazine in their pistol. Glocks were designed to hold 17, the magazines had plastic plugs to limit the number of rounds. If you were competing with another shooter and they did not have any limits on their magazines, you lost. Every time.
One game we played involved shooting bowling pins off a table at 30’. Five pins, then a stop plate on the ground next to the table. Revolvers ruled. Six shots were enough, unless you missed. I brought a semi-auto .45. 8 rounds in the magazine. One magazine in the pistol, one on the bench. We competed against each other. Two shooters, two tables, two stop plates. I often shot all my pins and the stop plate, then shot the pins of the other guy, for fun. One of the instructors brought his revolver with speed loaders. I smoked him until he went and got his semi-auto .45. Then we were competing on an even field. It is speed of shots, speed of reloads, and capacity.
Simple gun control says no magazines for long guns that hold more than four rounds. No more than four loaded magazines allowed on your person. No more than 10 rounds in your hand gun magazine, no more than four loaded magazines on your person. If you show up with 16 rifle rounds and 40 handgun rounds and the guns to shoot them and you are not safe, there is an unreasonable threat in society.
I don’t care how “tactical” your rock thrower looks, it’s just granddad’s deer rifle if it only holds five. No reason to confiscate any guns at all, just regulate the magazines.
If you want to know how to enforce it, do a buy-back of all high capacity (over 4) magazines and replace them with legal ones. Make possession of a high capacity magazine a federal felony with a penalty just like a gram of crack cocaine used to be, and allow private citizens to sue folks for $10,000 if they have high capacity magazines.
If you want expert’s opinions, poll all law enforcement agencies with the idea of limiting magazine capacity as I suggest.
