During a May 24 press conference on Elliot Rodger’s shooting spree in California, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said the guns Rodgers possessed “were legally purchased,” which means he went through a background check, and that he used 10-round magazines.
Three 9 mm semi-automatic handguns were recovered from the suspect’s vehicle. Two of these were Sig Sauer 226 model handguns and the remaining one was a Glock 34 long slide… We have determined that all three of the weapons were legally purchased from federally licensed firearms dealers and they were all registered to the suspect.
The fact that Rodger passed background checks is crucial information, as President Obama, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), and others continue to argue that expanding background checks to all gun sales will reduce crime. But Ivan Lopez (Ft. Hood, April 2014), Karl Halverson Pierson (Arapahoe High School), Aaron Alexis (DC Navy Yard), Paul Anthony Ciancia (LAX), James Holmes (Aurora theater), Nidal Hasan (Ft. Hood, November 2009), and now Rodger all underwent and passed background checks for their firearms.
President Obama and other gun control advocates also pushed to reduce legal magazine capacity to 10 rounds following the attack on Sandy Hook Elementary, suggesting smaller magazines would dissuade mass murderers. However, Breitbart News has repeatedly reported that, if magazines held fewer rounds, criminals would simply buy more magazines to commit their heinous acts.
On May 24, Sheriff Brown suggested that Rodger had done just that, as police found a total of 41 “loaded 10-round magazines” in Rodger’s car.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.