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Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a bill reducing the size of gun magazines, saying, "This is the very embodiment of reform in name only."

(William Perlman/The Star-Ledger)

By John R. Lott Jr.

Gun control advocates just can't let go of Gov. Chris Christie vetoing of a bill limiting gun magazines to 10 bullets. Christie's warning that the bill wouldn't save lives might not be politically popular, but it was scientifically accurate.

Obviously, politicians aren’t supposed to question whether gun control works, especially not so bluntly. But Christie wasn’t going to support new laws just for the sake of “doing something.”

“This is the very embodiment of reform in name only,” Christie noted in his veto. “It simply defies common sense to believe that imposing a new and entirely arbitrary number of bullets that can be lawfully loaded into a firearm will somehow eradicate, or even reduce, future instances of mass violence.”

Christie's reasoning has driven many critics crazy. Former Republican congressman and current MSNBC host Joe Scarborough slammed Christie as making one of the "stupidest arguments" he's ever heard. In Sunday's Star-Ledger ("One Gov. to another: A missed opportunity"), Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy took the unusual step of unloading on him in an opinion piece, calling the decision "appalling" and "callous," accusing Christie of doing it for "personal political aspirations," and that the decision defied "common sense."

But there is a reason that gun control supporters, such as Malloy, don’t provide evidence that Christie is factually in the wrong. There have been plenty of studies on assault weapon bans by criminologists and economists alike, but there isn’t any evidence that limiting magazine size helps fight crime.

Take the work of two criminology professors, Chris Koper and Jeff Roth. They were hired by the Clinton administration to evaluate the original assault weapons ban, which limited magazines to 10 bullets. They found: "the evidence is not strong enough for us to conclude that there was any meaningful effect (i.e., that the effect was different from zero)."

At the time, Koper and Roth suggested that after the ban had been in effect for more years, it might be possible to find a benefit. Seven years later, in 2004, they published a follow-up study for the National Institute of Justice with fellow criminologist Dan Woods that concluded, "we cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation's recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence."

My own work with University of Chicago professor Bill Landes looked at mass shootings and the federal and state assault weapon magazine limits had no impact on either the number or lethality of mass shootings.

Malloy justifies the 10-bullet limit saying: “a shooter must pause to reload three times more than a shooter with a 30-round magazine. ... We’ve seen time and time again how those precious few seconds with an empty magazine have the potential to save lives.” But he is clearly wrong. Ironically, his first example illustrates the opposite is true.

Large magazines such as that used in the Tucson, Ariz., shooting often jam — large magazines require very strong springs and, over time, the pressure from the bullets in the magazine cause the metal spring to suffer fatigue. When the spring loses its ability to push bullets into the chamber properly, you get jams. Such jamming also occurred in the Aurora, Colo., "Batman" movie theater attack.

But more important, bad guys don’t worry about laws limiting magazine size. A magazine, which is basically a metal box with a spring, is trivially easy to make. With the advent of cheap plastic 3D printers, people who are willing to break the law can make whatever size magazine they want.

Limits on magazine size are more likely to affect law-abiding citizens. People who legally carry concealed for self-defense are unlikely to lug around extra magazines just on the chance that they will need them. In contrast, mass shooters know when their attack will take place and come well prepared with extra magazines.

Finally, it is not uncommon for would-be victims when faced with multiple home invaders to fire more than 10 bullets.

Christie made the tough decision, but he has science on his side.

John R. Lott Jr. is the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author of "More Guns, Less Crime" (University of Chicago Press, 2010).

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