The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Senators co-sponsor bill to limit magazine capacity
WASHINGTON — Connecticut Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy joined forces Tuesday as co-sponsors of legislation aimed at limiting rifle and handgun magazines to 10 rounds — far less than the 30-round magazines that Newtown shooter Adam Lanza used in his 2012 rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
“They are force multipliers for evil,” Blumenthal said at a news conference called to announce the Keep America Safe Act, which he argued would significantly lower the death toll of mass shootings. “Guns become doubly and triply deadly because of high-capacity magazines. There is no more simple, straightforward way to save lives than to ban high-capacity magazines.”
Blumenthal and Murphy joined the measure’s chief sponsor, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., in saying that lesser magazine capacity means a shooter must reload more often, giving potential victims time to flee or resist.
In all, Lanza killed 20 school children and six adult staff members in what still stands as a turning point in the nation’s effort to grapple with random mass murder in public places.
Murphy and the others pointed to Jared Lee Loughner, the mass shooter in Tucson, who gravely injured then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz. A retired Army colonel was able to tackle Loughner as he attempted to put a new magazine in a 9 mm Glock handgun.
“This isn’t theory; this is what happens in practice,” Murphy said at the news conference. “We need to get this passed and we need to get it passed quickly.”
Connecticut already bans high-capacity magazines, including the ban in its gun-violence law approved in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings.
. With Democrats in control of the House, it suddenly is fertile ground for guncontrol measures such as the Keep America Safe Act. But the Senate remains Republican, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has given no indication he is in any hurry to bring any such proposal to a vote.
Even when it was in Democratic hands in 2013, the Senate fell six votes short of overcoming a filibuster blocking a bill to expand gun-purchase background checks — effectively closing the so-called “gun show loophole.”
Nevertheless, Blumenthal said Tuesday that public abhorrence over mass shootings and the desire for new gun laws helped Democrats achieve victory in the House in the 2018 election.
“Some of my (Republican) colleagues are going to go to their leadership and say, ‘We need to do something … because the overwhelming cry of the American people is to do something,’” Blumenthal said. “It’s that simple.”
Blumenthal characterized the high-capacity measure as a “no brainer” that Democrats wisely broke out from broader and potentially more controversial legislation that would expand background checks, deny gun purchases to those on the aviation “no-fly” list, or permit “risk-prevention” orders such as the one in Connecticut that permits family and friends to petition judges to temporarily seize guns from troubled individuals.
“This measure is a discrete, unchallengeable and unquestionable way to save lives,” he said.