Friday, June 22, 2007
Tighter Gun Control in Massachusetts
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has proposed a new gun-control restriction (don't we have enough already?) -- which he calls "H3991", but which the rest of us call "one gun or magazine purchase per month".
This annoys me -- I can see the one-gun-per-month restriction as not being particularly onerous, I suppose (except to gun collectors). But magazines? Am I to understand that, if my local police chief authorizes a legal gun license for me, with which I then go to purchase a pistol, two magazines, and a box of ammo -- a perfectly legitimate way to start target-shooting as a hobby, for example -- the Governor wants it to take me three months, just to complete the purchase?
Part of the reason this annoys me is because, of course, it is a restriction on Second Amendment freedoms. But another reason is that I can't see what on Earth this is supposed to accomplish, other than to be a first step towards even more onerous legislation. (If the Massachusetts legislature can restrict us to one gun purchase per month, they can restrict us to one purchase per year... and, eventually, to one purchase per lifetime, or none at all.) Does anyone really expect a bill such as this to reduce crime? Can anyone imagine a criminal gang, in need of additional firepower for a bank robbery, being deterred by this bill and calling off the heist because of it?
(Thanks to The Hobbesian Father for calling my attention to this!)
