High Capacity Magazines

High Capacity Magazines? There is no such animal. If there are, they are very rare, impractical, and less reliable.

There have been bans on so-called 'High Capacity Magazine' in various jurisdictions. Including Maryland.

What they are banning is REGULAR Capacity Magazines. The magazine that was designed to go with the firearm. Often, they will require the sale of Gimped Magazine. Magazines altered to hold less than the optimal number of cartridges. Also known as 'broken' magazines.

Maryland isn't so bad. Some jurisdictions make it a no-no to possess a magazine made after a certain date that holds more than 10 rounds. Maryland says you can't sell, in the state, a magazine after a certain date that holds more than 20.

This 'manufactured after a certain date' thing causes an artificial market, and old magazine fetch a price premium. $20 in and new in Virginia can cost $60 and used in Massachusetts. And how do you tell if it's the right vintage? Carbon dating? Whatever the District Attourney says it is?

Silly, isn't it?

And what purpose does it serve other than to inconvenience and cow lawful gun owners? Say you have a crazed maniac that follows all the gun laws and gun magazine laws except the one law where it says "Don't shoot a whole bunch of innocent people." So he complies with all but that one and only shoots 10 times into a crowd instead of 12 because of the mag restriction?

What about the Virginia Tech Shooter? Wouldn't a mag restriction in Virginia have helped? He shot and killed 32 people. Shot a lot more than that out of his Glock, reports say there were 170 shots fired. Would much have changed if he had to have a lot of 10 round magazines with him instead of a lot of 15 round magazines? Probably not.

Magazine retrictions are a gun control law that does nothing to help its stated purpose of protecting the law abiding from predators.