L.A. City tightens gun ammo law

On Wednesday December 17, 2008 LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa along with LAPD chief William Bratton developed a new ordinance to limit the sell of military ammo in LA City. The new law will prevent citizens from purchasing .50 caliber ammunition in Los Angeles. The new law also prevents people from purchasing ammo over the internet and would now require person to person sales. According to city officials the purpose of the law is to reduce gang violence.

Huh? I don’t get it. I’m all about eliminating and controlling our gang problem. However, the new ordinance is a joke! I don't remember the last time any gang used a .50 cal gun to kill or shoot anything. I’m sure this would have made the news. News flash folks!, gang members don't purchase ammo or guns legally. If you do your research you will find that most gang related homicides involved the use of 9mm, 12 gauge, or 7.62 caliber ammo. Will the next ordinance ban the sale of more popularly used ammunition and where do we draw the line?

Let’s take a deeper look at this. The below link from the Violence Policy Center (VPC)
lists all the crimes or criminal activity that has involved a .50 caliber rifle going back to 1989 almost 20 years.

http://www.vpc.org/snipercrime.htm

None of the crimes involved gang members. Furthermore, all of the charges involved more high level criminal activity including drug cartels and cults (e.g. Waco TX). Yes one can argue that a drug cartel is connected to gang. However, there were only 2 California arrests on the list that involved a .50 caliber rifle and in both cases the gun was not fired. As you can see, .50 caliber rifles are virtually unheard of in crimes. People don’t seem to understand that modern .50 caliber rifles are too big, heavy, and pricey for most criminals. .50 caliber rifles generally measure 4-5 feet in length and weigh 25-35 pounds. In addition, a basic .50 caliber rifle will start at about $3000. The VPC identified only two crimes in the U.S. since 1992 in which a .50 caliber rifle was even fired.

According to the National Rifle Association (NRA), “these laws are just trying to manufacture an issue to rejuvenate their gun-banning agenda, which collapsed last year when Congress allowed the Clinton Gun Ban to expire, after independent studies for Congress showed that the ban had been a mistake”. This new LA ordinance is a similar situation. You can ban .50 cal today and tomorrow they will ban something else. It goes back to that age old saying, “guns don’t kill, people do”. I agree that we have to have stricter laws on criminals that use guns but not laws that prevent ordinary law abiding citizens from owning and purchasing guns for recreation. They try to ban hand guns because they are too small. They try to ban rifles because they are too big? Goldilocks didn’t like one porridge because it was too hot and she didn’t like another because it was too cold. Goldi found the porridge that was just right. When will these Goldilock ass gun banning folks find what is just right.