Limiting Magazine Size Pointless

With the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida, public outrage is sparking ideas for reforms to prevent another shooting from happening. One of these reforms is limiting magazine size. However, limiting magazine size on AR-15s would be pointless because anyone with engineering know-how can make a 5 round magazine a 20.

As high school students, we are one of the main targets, as well as perpetrators, of school shootings. Anyone walking through the halls of Licking Valley High School could be a potential shooter since motives for these tragedies aren’t always black and white. Not only is it important to know what is going on with other schools, it’s important to what’s going on in our school and know what changes may be made. With situations like these, it is extremely difficult to prevent or even estimate when a shooting may occur. It is evident that whatever we are doing right now isn’t working, but no one seems to have a clear answer on what to do.

In a scramble for ways to prevent these incidents, one argument that is brought up is magazine size. One may say, “if we limit the magazine size to five rounds, they would have less of a chance to kill people.” I see where they are coming from in this argument, but someone intent on killing will kill. No matter what obstacle is thrown at them. Magazine size would not deter people from shooting up schools since you can just buy more magazines. Magazine size can also be altered if a person knows anything about engineering, welding, how guns even work, etc. A five round magazine can easily be a twenty if altered, making the reform useless. One would also have to have limitations on the bullets that go into those magazines.

The AR-15 is a versatile weapon that can shoot a plethora of different bullets. Simply put, not all AR-15s are automatic. Like the body of a car, the AR-15 is just the vessel in which everything works. The engine, tires, etc. would be the magazine, rounds, etc. The AR-15 is sometimes used a hunting rifle due to its versatility and how enjoyable it is to shoot.

If one wants to reform how a gun is sold, you must first know how the gun works and how it is used outside of a school shooting setting. One must also consider how a most likely mentally unstable person would be able to bypass the current and/or future system. Moreover, the reform of magazine size limitation would be unproductive and a waste of reform policy due to how easy it would be to bypass the reform with simple engineering skill and knowledge on the gun they’re working with.