Pittsburgh considers stricter gun laws after synagogue attack

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

POLITICS DECEMBER 18, 2018 / 9:40 AM / UPDATED 36 MINUTES AGO

Pittsburgh considers stricter gun laws after synagogue attack

Gabriella Borter
2 MIN READ

(Reuters) - The Pittsburgh City Council began considering a package of gun-control laws on Tuesday, including a ban on assault-style rifles, nearly two months after a gunman shouting anti-Semitic messages killed 11 people in a synagogue.

The measure would also ban certain types of ammunition and allow courts to ban gun ownership by people deemed to pose a significant threat of violence.

Seven of nine council members agreed to co-sponsor the legislation at Tuesday’s meeting.

“As gun violence escalates across the country, it would be unconscionable for me to stand by and do nothing,” Councilman Corey O’Connor, one of the legislation’s authors, said in a statement. O’Connor represents Squirrel Hill, the neighborhood where the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue took place.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pennsylvania-shooting/pittsburgh-considers-stricter-gun-laws-after-synagogue-attack-idUSKBN1OH1JU

[gunsmoker]

1. Not City Level

The city and county level is the wrong level of government to restrict guns and ammunition. It should be a set of laws that are uniform through the entire state. Pennsylvania already has a state-level preemption law that forbids local governments from doing any gun control other than enforcing the State laws. That is more fair to the citizens of the state who should not be expected to research the local city and county gun laws of every jurisdiction they pass through when they travel. Just going from home to work and to the local shopping mall and back might involve going through two different counties and three or four cities or villages.

A state wide restriction on certain fire arms would also fit well with the federal law which only allows residents of one state to buy a long gun (meaning something bigger than a handgun) in another state if (and only if) that is legal under the laws of both of those states. This means the Feds have an enforcement mechanism already in place to prevent people from Pennsylvania going into gun stores in other states and buying guns that would be illegal to sell in Pennsylvania itself .

There is no corresponding federal law that demands observance of city or county gun restrictions, and it would be unenforceable anyway. People who choose to ignore that law could go anywhere else in Pennsylvania and buy the guns and ammo that they cannot get in Pittsburgh.

[gunsmoker]

2. Two Critical Factors

What made the attack by this Jew-hating nut, Robert Bowers, so lethal (11 dead, 6 wounded) was that his guns had two features. Both features together had to be combined in order for his attack to be so devastating; either feature alone would not mean much.

Feature 1: Semi-auto operation. Once the guns were loaded and cocked they could be fired over and over again just by pulling the trigger. No pumping, no manual cocking, no working of any levers. Just point and click, like your mouse.

Feature 2: Full capacity magazines. I read three news articles about the shooting, and I don't know exactly what the magazine sizes were for the exact weapons he had, but generally AR- 15 rifles use 30 round magazines as standard. Glock pistols use 15 to 17 round magazines (and he had multiple pistols). These guns all used detachable magazines that could easily be discarded when empty and replaced with a fully loaded fresh magazine. This is quite a bit different system from a tubular magazine system which is slow to load or reload.

But, I think we should ask ourselves this question: if the crazy killer had been limited to purchasing only 2 firearms--let's say one rifle and one pistol-- and these weapons were not semi automatic (let's say the rifle was a pump action and the pistol an 8-shot revolver) and if the rifle had limited capacity magazines that held only 10 rounds each...

...could he have still killed many people in the synagogue ? Using that one pump -action rifle, with a few extra 10 round magazines stuffed in his pockets, and one eight shot revolver? I think the answer is yes, he could've killed several innocent victims.

The only real difference is he would not have been so dangerous to the responding law enforcement officers after he killed the worshippers. He would've been shot down immediately upon engaging the police rather than matching their firepower with his and having a long drawn-out gun fight with the cops that resulted in two of them getting seriously injured.

[gejohnston]

3. Another question,

If he couldn't get a gun, or maybe decided to use another means, like, gasoline or other means. Or maybe black market like the 1996 guy in Australia (he didn't have a permit to buy the guns, and one was stolen from Victoria State Police) or pick any mass shooting in Europe in the past few years. It makes more sense to deal with the individuals rather than continue pointless culture wars about the means used.

this kind of attacker has no problem getting automatics in Europe. Synagogues throughout Europe often have security armed with submachine guns. Given our larger population, its amazing that haven't had as many attacks here as there.

Perhaps a better question is what do we do about those elements on the extreme right and left that simply think that it is OK to kill Jews?

Just one more thing, news articles are often written by people who lack the curiosity to ask for basic facts. The pitbull in the story turns out to be a black lab, or the AR turns out to be a pump shotgun, etc.