Depriving the public of gear as a way to stop murderers is misguided, puts you at risk and at its core, is a thinly disguised effort to get to zero-round magazines—in the false and dangerous belief that disarming innocent people will finally disarm criminals. Legislators asked me to prepare this list, to help them with the media inquisition they face. The unbiased media never grills the people who want to deny your rights, only those who defend them.

The Crux:

By focusing on magazine size instead of ways to stop active shooters you jeopardize everyone’s safety.

Hoping to limit murderers by limiting magazines is irrational and hoplophobic (a morbid fear of guns).

Why have the gun banners picked a ten-round limit? Why not two? Or eleven? Are they saying it’s OK to only kill ten people? That makes no sense—it’s “irrational.” (Typical reply is “We would make it zero bullets if we could!” exposing the truth.)

Why not make police obey the same limit for safety? The answer is self evident—less ammo makes police less safe, not more safe. The same reasoning applies to the public.

Parity With Police:

The public faces the same criminals police do. Any restrictions for the public must match what police can use. (The public is always first at the scene.)

If you cannot justify impeding the police with ammunition limits, you cannot legitimately justify impeding the public that way. For the same sensible reasons.

A criminal can’t have a magazine of any size.

A law restricting size takes away nothing.

None Of These Arguments Matter:

People who want to restrict magazines are on a roll, using the Tucson assassinations for momentum. (Dear reader: Note the age of this debate…

We’re up to Paris and San Bernardino. Tucson was 2011, when these points were first deployed to add clarity to the debate.)

The anti-rights people are still trying to disarm us all with the same tried arguments that won’t affect the bad guys.

Their rule would restrict freedom we currently have, that’s all.

They want any kind of gun bans they can get, regardless of crime fighting, public safety, logic or reason. Magazine size is merely their soup du jour (and their garbage d’hier). They are emotionally compromised.

Limiting the amount of ammunition a person has for self defense is dangerous.

The only way to stop a lethal attack is with countervailing force.

The correct response to a mass murderer is not to restrict the public, but to empower the public and give us every advantage possible.

It’s people who are the very first responders. Police are second responders.

An infringed-capacity magazine violates your civil rights.

Infringing on the size of a magazine doesn’t stop crazy people. Imagining that it somehow will, now that’s crazy.

Will magazine-size bans feel good, as if you’re really doing something?

Yes.

Will they actually do something?

No.

What’s the Latin name for that logic error: “We have to do something.”

Appelare desperadi, appeal to desperation.

We must do the right thing, not some thing.

Reasoning:

Will a magazine limit stop a murderer from carrying several guns? Of course not.

Will it prevent swapping out magazines? How do you propose controlling that?

Infringing on magazine size has no effect on the millions of magazines already out there.

Limiting the public doesn’t limit criminals. It just limits the public.

Trying to stop crime or crazy people by limiting magazine size can’t work. We tried that, for ten years under Clinton’s size ban. It’s a proven failure. The NY Times admitted this.

Using tragedy to advance a political agenda aimed at incrementally disarming the public is the ugliest underbelly of politics. It’s shameful.

If legislation really could stop criminals there wouldn’t be any.

Laws do not stop crime.

Law enforcement stops crime.

Millions of 30-round and larger magazines are not used for killing, they’re used daily at ranges, which is where most legal gun use happens. Attacks on magazines are attacks on ranges, the home court for the Second Amendment, the bottom line on legal gun use. Attacks on magazines are attacks on the heart of the right to keep and bear arms.

Criminals can’t have any magazines.

Disarm criminals first.

Government must not infringe on the innocent.

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Alan Korwin is the author of 14 books, 10 of them on gun law. His book After You Shoot examines ways to lower your risks after a self-defense shooting. He has been invited twice to observe oral argument in gun cases at the U.S. Supreme Court. Reach him at GunLaws.com, where he is the publisher of Bloomfield Press.