A report on “high capacity” magazine bans in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, and Sunnyvale shows the bans are not having any “actual impact.”
This means that “no magazines [have been] turned in, and none seized as a direct result of the local large-magazine bans on the books.” Therefore, criminals still have them, but law-abiding citizens cannot get them in LA, Oakland, San Francisco, and Sunnyvale.
Allison Anderman of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence says, “The fact that these laws may be difficult to enforce in some cases is not an argument against enacting them.”
Anderman argues that the bans are still a valid option if they “have the potential to have an impact.”
According to KQED, UC Irvine criminal justice Professor George Tita believes the actual impact of “high capacity” magazine bans is unknown, and he suggests the so-called difficulty of “determining the efficacy of local regulations is of course the prohibition against federal funding on researching gun violence.”
KQED reports that the core of the problem may be in the enforcement mechanism, as the punishment for possessing a banned magazine in the four cities is a misdemeanor. Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley states, “The misdemeanor does allow us to take the guns away” and even to “destroy” magazines. However, she explains, its best purpose is ensuring that with repeat offenders, subsequent violations can lead to harsher penalties.
The penalty for violating Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed statewide “high capacity” ban will also be a misdemeanor.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.