LouisianaCarry
Tactibilly
Limit guns' capacities to save lives
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http://www.wcmh.com/tristate/tri/opinions.apx.-content-articles-TRI-2008-01-13-0002.html
Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 - 12:00 AM
BY ZACHARY KURPIAS
SPECIAL TO THE HERALD COURIER
We are at the start of a new year of opportunity and possibilities. Can we make this a better year than the last one? I think we can and should.
We can reduce the level of fear in America. We can improve our tarnished world image and re-emerge as an example that other nations and countries would strive to emulate. Let’s start by reducing the fear level in our own country.
Pick up the newspaper, read a magazine, watch the evening news or a television special. Sometime during the week, there will be a shooting incident that causes the deaths of innocents. It could be children at school, a police officer performing a traffic stop, people shopping in a mall or occupants of cars driving on our roads.
IT IS THIS volume of firepower that I want to address. Current manufacturing practices for handguns give a minimum of six rounds that can be fired before reloading is necessary for a revolver. Semi-automatic firearms can fire that much and more.
There are pistols on the market that will give the shooter 19 shots before reloading. Recharging the weapon only requires pressing a button, dropping the used clip and inserting a fresh clip holding another 19 rounds. That can be done in less time then it takes to read this sentence.
Pistols are not the only problem. Shoulder-fired weapons, like rifles and shotguns, also are made that have the capacity to carry large amounts of ammunition. Bolt-action rifles, a standard for hunting, can carry four shots in an internal magazine and one in the chamber. That is five rounds of high-powered, long-reaching ammunition a person can fire without stopping. Lever-action rifles can hold 10 rounds in a tube magazine. The semi-automatic clip style rifles can shoot up to 50 rounds before a reload is necessary.
THE SEMI-AUTOMATIC or pump versions of shotguns can carry seven rounds in a tube or box-style magazine plus one in the chamber. Although the reloading process is slower than for either a pistol or rifle, the number of rounds available is still an issue since each shotgun shell can release multiple projectiles to hit a target, giving multiple wounds with one shot, or the same one shot can take out multiple targets.
I will note for clarity that there are specialty handguns and shoulder-fired weapons that have less capacity, but they are not the normal weapons of choice used in criminal acts.
I have questions to ask concerning this ammunition capacity issue. Why do we, average citizens, need weapons that will fire six to 50 bullets before reloading? What kind of hunters are we that can’t drop a bear, or other vicious animal, with four rounds? What kind of self-defense problem do we have to face that our weapon of choice can have the capability to kill 10 to 20 human beings?
If we seriously look at the needs in hunting, sport or self-defense, it becomes apparent that we are overstocking ourselves with firepower.
THE ANSWER to this dilemma is to make the capability of large capacity ammunition storage devices unavailable. We can’t and should not restrict the purchase of firearms by people who use them in socially accepted practices, but we should limit the number of rounds that can be fired before the weapon needs to be reloaded.
I am of the opinion that the number of rounds a weapon can fire before reloading should be four. This is regardless of the type of weapon.
Why four rounds instead of six like most wheel guns or revolvers now carry? Because it would require the modification of all firearms in the United States, all 200-plus million of them. Any weapon that was not so modified would stick out like a sore thumb.
The result of this modification would be less availability of high capacity devices on the street for the bad guys to use against us. If no store would sell and no company would make weapons and magazines for general public use that could store more than four rounds, then it would dry up the common sources that bad guys have available to get this capability. It would still allow law-abiding citizens to keep and use their weapons.
JOE CITIZEN should be able to perform a one-for-one free exchange of their clips, magazines, ammo tubes or revolver cylinders, at any gun store in the United States. Law-abiding citizens who agree to practice responsible gun ownership should not be charged or penalized for making this sacrifice.
The devices that are turned in should be given to certified law enforcement officers in the public and private sectors. Let those who have taken on the liability and responsibility to protect us have the firepower they need to perform their mission.
When the majority accepts this exchange idea, and we have the funds to pay for the modifications, then Congress can step in to enact the laws that would make the possession of high-capacity ammunition devices a felony. There should be a clause in the bills that would allow citizens time to get their weapons modified.
THERE ARE going to be people who will not want to give up their six-shooters or change out the 10-shot clips in their semi-automatics for a permanently, plugged version that would only allow four rounds. Their defense would be that such a program is a restriction of their rights.
It is no more a restriction of rights than the laws that require us to drive a car at 35 miles per hour through a town instead of going the maximum speed of which the car is capable. The restriction is imposed for the same reason – to protect the innocent from undue harm.
We can make the change. We can stop the killing. We can give people in our country a better life.
Zachary Kurpias is a retired intelligence analyst and U.S. Army veteran. He lives in Bristol Tennessee
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.wcmh.com/tristate/tri/opinions.apx.-content-articles-TRI-2008-01-13-0002.html
Sunday, Jan 13, 2008 - 12:00 AM
BY ZACHARY KURPIAS
SPECIAL TO THE HERALD COURIER
We are at the start of a new year of opportunity and possibilities. Can we make this a better year than the last one? I think we can and should.
We can reduce the level of fear in America. We can improve our tarnished world image and re-emerge as an example that other nations and countries would strive to emulate. Let’s start by reducing the fear level in our own country.
Pick up the newspaper, read a magazine, watch the evening news or a television special. Sometime during the week, there will be a shooting incident that causes the deaths of innocents. It could be children at school, a police officer performing a traffic stop, people shopping in a mall or occupants of cars driving on our roads.
IT IS THIS volume of firepower that I want to address. Current manufacturing practices for handguns give a minimum of six rounds that can be fired before reloading is necessary for a revolver. Semi-automatic firearms can fire that much and more.
There are pistols on the market that will give the shooter 19 shots before reloading. Recharging the weapon only requires pressing a button, dropping the used clip and inserting a fresh clip holding another 19 rounds. That can be done in less time then it takes to read this sentence.
Pistols are not the only problem. Shoulder-fired weapons, like rifles and shotguns, also are made that have the capacity to carry large amounts of ammunition. Bolt-action rifles, a standard for hunting, can carry four shots in an internal magazine and one in the chamber. That is five rounds of high-powered, long-reaching ammunition a person can fire without stopping. Lever-action rifles can hold 10 rounds in a tube magazine. The semi-automatic clip style rifles can shoot up to 50 rounds before a reload is necessary.
THE SEMI-AUTOMATIC or pump versions of shotguns can carry seven rounds in a tube or box-style magazine plus one in the chamber. Although the reloading process is slower than for either a pistol or rifle, the number of rounds available is still an issue since each shotgun shell can release multiple projectiles to hit a target, giving multiple wounds with one shot, or the same one shot can take out multiple targets.
I will note for clarity that there are specialty handguns and shoulder-fired weapons that have less capacity, but they are not the normal weapons of choice used in criminal acts.
I have questions to ask concerning this ammunition capacity issue. Why do we, average citizens, need weapons that will fire six to 50 bullets before reloading? What kind of hunters are we that can’t drop a bear, or other vicious animal, with four rounds? What kind of self-defense problem do we have to face that our weapon of choice can have the capability to kill 10 to 20 human beings?
If we seriously look at the needs in hunting, sport or self-defense, it becomes apparent that we are overstocking ourselves with firepower.
THE ANSWER to this dilemma is to make the capability of large capacity ammunition storage devices unavailable. We can’t and should not restrict the purchase of firearms by people who use them in socially accepted practices, but we should limit the number of rounds that can be fired before the weapon needs to be reloaded.
I am of the opinion that the number of rounds a weapon can fire before reloading should be four. This is regardless of the type of weapon.
Why four rounds instead of six like most wheel guns or revolvers now carry? Because it would require the modification of all firearms in the United States, all 200-plus million of them. Any weapon that was not so modified would stick out like a sore thumb.
The result of this modification would be less availability of high capacity devices on the street for the bad guys to use against us. If no store would sell and no company would make weapons and magazines for general public use that could store more than four rounds, then it would dry up the common sources that bad guys have available to get this capability. It would still allow law-abiding citizens to keep and use their weapons.
JOE CITIZEN should be able to perform a one-for-one free exchange of their clips, magazines, ammo tubes or revolver cylinders, at any gun store in the United States. Law-abiding citizens who agree to practice responsible gun ownership should not be charged or penalized for making this sacrifice.
The devices that are turned in should be given to certified law enforcement officers in the public and private sectors. Let those who have taken on the liability and responsibility to protect us have the firepower they need to perform their mission.
When the majority accepts this exchange idea, and we have the funds to pay for the modifications, then Congress can step in to enact the laws that would make the possession of high-capacity ammunition devices a felony. There should be a clause in the bills that would allow citizens time to get their weapons modified.
THERE ARE going to be people who will not want to give up their six-shooters or change out the 10-shot clips in their semi-automatics for a permanently, plugged version that would only allow four rounds. Their defense would be that such a program is a restriction of their rights.
It is no more a restriction of rights than the laws that require us to drive a car at 35 miles per hour through a town instead of going the maximum speed of which the car is capable. The restriction is imposed for the same reason – to protect the innocent from undue harm.
We can make the change. We can stop the killing. We can give people in our country a better life.
Zachary Kurpias is a retired intelligence analyst and U.S. Army veteran. He lives in Bristol Tennessee
