Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-RI) and numerous Democrat colleagues in the House are pushing an “assault weapons” ban that would prohibit “high capacity” magazines and 205 different firearms.
The Providence Journal reports that Cicilline’s bill, HR 5087, “would prohibit the sale, transfer, production, and importation of semi-automatic rifles and pistols that have a magazine or can accept a magazine that can hold more than 10 bullets, and any ammunition-feeding device that can hold more than 10 bullets.”
Cicilline’s bill describes an “semiautomatic assault weapon” as a firearm with a “detachable magazine” and a “pistol grip,” “forward grip,” “folding stock,” “rocket launcher,” or “threaded barrel.” The list includes pistols made by CZ, Daniel Defense, America Spirit, Heckler and Koch, Centurion, and DPMS, among others. It includes rifles made by Kel-Tec, Springfield Armory, Heckler and Koch, Barrett, Beretta, Stag Arms, Remington, Rock River, Mossberg, Diamond Back, Daniel Defense, Colt, Bushmaster, Armalite, and Norinco, among others.
Cicilline’s bill bans “all AK types” even though the Florida gunman used an AR-15.
HR 5087 describes “high capacity” magazines as a “large capacity ammunition feeding device,” making it “unlawful for a person to import, sell, manufacture, or possess, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, a large capacity ammunition feeding device.”
Ironically, a Virginia Tech Review Panel that examined the April 16, 2007, firearm-based attack on the gun-free Virginia Tech campus found that a ban on “high capacity” magazines would not have mitigated the terrible outcome of the attack. Thirty-two people were killed by a killer armed with a handgun and 15-round magazines. But the killer had the one thing needed most–time. No one could shoot back, so whether he had magazines holding 10-rounds or 15, he had all the time in the world to reload and ply his trade.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange