I am no expert on guns either, but when I read what Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette, the lead Democratic sponsor of the federal bill to ban high-capacity magazines, said about how her bill would reduce violence, I was shocked at her ignorance.
Daily Caller:
When asked how limiting the number of bullets in magazines would help reduce violence, she replied: "I will tell you these are ammunition, they're bullets, so the people who have those now, they're going to shoot them. So if you ban them in the future, the number of these high-capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time, because the bullets will have been shot and there won't be any more available."
Some audience members laughed, but gun-rights advocates weren't amused.
"It's extremely alarming that Rep. DeGette is running federal legislation to ban magazine clips, when she doesn't even know what a magazine clip is," Colorado GOP spokesman Owen Loftus told the Denver Post. "Rep. DeGette's comments show that Democrats are more concerned with appeasing their radical base than standing up for responsible, law abiding citizens."
Colorado state Sen. Greg Brophy, one of the most vocal Republican opponents to Colorado's new gun laws, told The Daily Caller News Foundation that DeGette's comment was "stunningly stupid."
"I would think that if you're going to sponsor a bill regulating [firearms], you'd at least want to know how they worked," he said.
At the same forum, DeGette also mocked a senior citizen who said the state's new gun laws would put him at a significant disadvantage in a firefight.
DeGette replied that he was lucky to live in Denver, where the police department could come to his aid "within minutes."
"You'd probably be dead anyway if they had that kind of firepower," DeGette continued.
I've heard the same reasoning from other gun control advocates - that we don't need guns because the police are minutes away and will save us and our family if someone breaks in intent on murder. This is nonsense. The police are not in the business of riding to your rescue when under attack. They are much better at dealing with the aftermath of a crime than they are preventing one in the first place. Crime prevention relies almost exclusively on the psychological impact of police patrols on the criminal mind. More police cars in high crime areas means that some crimes are somewhat deterred.
But police rarely arrive in time to stop crime before it occurs - something the Congresswoman implicitly recognizes when she sneers at the senior citizen that he'd "probably be dead anyway" and doesn't need a high capacity magazine.
Such compassion and intelligence seems to be about par for the course among the gun grabbers.
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