GLOCK 15-round magazine (courtesy The Truth About Guns)

Over at Ammoland.com Dan Roberts’ writes:

Word came late this afternoon that a back room deal has been arranged between both houses of the NJ Legislature to reduce by a completely arbitrary amount the maximum capacity of ammunition magazines from the current 15 rounds, to no more then 10. This is a goal that has been pursued by various NJ Legislatures such as Lou Greenwald (D-6) for the last three Legislative Sessions but got little traction until 2013 after the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. It was held back from being voted on last June by Senate President Steve Sweeney, who publicly stated that the existing limit of 15 was sufficient. That’s all changed in the blink of an eye . . .

With his eye’s firmly set on taking over Chris Christie’s job as Governor in a few years, the formerly long-time NRA A-rated Sweeney has shown his true colors in recent weeks. Lashing out at constituents for persisting in questioning him regarding his position on NJ gun laws during regular Twitter Thursday events.

After last Summer proposing some of the most onerous Anti Gun Legislation in recent memory, dropping his NRA A rating to a C and costing him the support of many blue collar gun enthusiasts in his home district.

Details are scarce thus far. But what we do know is that the terms of the deal, as reported by two sources close to the negotiations have stated, seem to center on accepting the ten round magazine capacity limit in exchange for tweaks to the wording of the current firearms transportation laws.

Its true that NJ’s restrictions on transporting firearms legally are notoriously draconian and have been used in the past as threat to intimidate gun owners and prospective gun owners, as well as a weapon of vicious punishment for even honest, technical mistakes, as was seen in the Aitkens and Revell cases.

There is no logical reason for gun owners to agree with gaining back a few more exceptions to an already overly narrow law governing something that has been stolen from them, in exchange for agreeing to go along quietly with a new, even lower magazine capacity restriction that is already in place and that will have absolutely no effect on violent crime or shootings.

Greg Ridgeway the Deputy Director of the National Institute of Justice ( The research and academic arm of the Dept of Justice) reported in a secret “white paper“ study to the Obama Administration in January 2013 stated.

“The 1994 ban on large capacity magazines had limited effectiveness because ‘Large Capacity Magazines’ are a durable good.”

Dr Ridgeway went on to state ” In order to have an impact, large capacity magazine regulation needs to sharply curtail their availability to include restrictions on importation, manufacture, sale, and possession. An exemption for previously owned magazines ( Grandfathering), would nearly eliminate any impact. The program would need to be coupled with an extensive buyback of existing large capacity magazines. With any exemptions, the impact of restrictions would only be felt when the magazines degraded or when they were no longer compatible with guns in circulation. This would take decades to realize”.

A separate, more exhaustive study undertaken by the non-partisan National Academy of Sciences in 2004 titled “Firearms and Violence, A Critical Review” examined twenty of the most Popular Gun Control laws or proposals and found not one, including those pertaining to limiting magazine capacity had “any statistically significant impact on crime or violent crime rates”.

Of course, all this will be ignored by the likes of Loretta Weinberg (D-Essex) who was instrumental in co-coordinating bringing several out of state Sandy Hook families to Trenton last year to push for such restrictions in New Jersey. Something main stream media, like editor in chief Tom Moran at The Star Ledger, had nothing but praise for. Apparently as reported in today’s late breaking news, arrangements are already in the works to bring Sandy Hook families back next week as part of the public spectacle and “fanfare” surround this deal.

“As part of the fanfare surrounding the announcement of the ammunition magazine limit, families of the young victims of the 2012 Newtown, Ct. school shootings will be on hand to attend a press conference with legislative leaders.” 

It remains to be seen if Mr. Moran and Co. will express the same indignant outrage with regard to bringing in families from out of State as props for this assault on legal gun owners as he was just days ago when telling Wyoming and numerous other states to “butt out” of NJ Gun laws.

The same Loretta Weinberg who, after coming under withering questioning regarding an earlier attempt at banning .50 rifles, stormed out of a Committee Hearing on the matter and was heard by several witnesses saying “What do you expect me to know about all this ? We pass laws all the time we know nothing about “

The same Loretta Weinberg, who was among a clutch of female Legislators last Spring and was caught during a “hot mic” moment when the words “Confiscate, Confiscate, Confiscate” were uttered. Several people familiar with Weinberg’s voice, after listening to the audio tape insisted it was her, but independent verification never came to light.

The fact is, this issue is not now, and never was about having any meaningful impact on actual crime or criminals. It is about power, control, arrogance and a deep seated, vicious and bigoted hatred of firearms and their owners.

If it was about crime, the legislature could simply pass a law that made the possession or use of a so called “high capacity magazine” during the commission of crime a sentence enhancer, just like they have done in the past with the Grave’s Act and with hollow point bullets. The fact that there isn’t even a mention of such language in this deal, and that is it focused exclusively on the hollow act of giving back to law abiding gun owners rights and privileges that were illegally and unethically stolen from them in exchange for the arbitrary mag capacity limit is proof that this was never about criminals.

It was about Democrats’ extreme anti-gun ideology, plain and simple.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

74 COMMENTS

  1. “It was about Democrats’ extreme anti-gun ideology, plain and simple.”

    Wrong.

    It is the extreme anti-gun ideaology of a miseducated electorate in New Jersey.

    • Miseducated and misled. There’s also a ton of corruption still to this day in New Jersey politics and way too many back room deals going on. Even if the people don’t want this change it will be forced upon them.

      • The corruption you speak of, and the mafia on the side, is the true reason that anti-gun legislation multiplies in NJ. At least since the days of Nucky Johnson and Frank Farley, the state’s been heavily corrupt. What state takes it’s then-leading-gangster, Nucky, and makes him Clerk of the State Supreme Court during his brief time out of office? The politicians, most of them, are paranoid. They are paranoid because they have guilty consciences and skeletons in the closet. And they get guns. Because they’re special. Cops in NJ are interesting: They get to decide, after investigation, whether you may even buy a gun. But they also give out “get out of a ticket free” cards, friend cards, to their physicians, dentists, favorite bartenders, etc. ….and the state voters tolerate this, as if it is not corruption. I wonder, laugh, if NJ judges give out such cards….

    • Thank you. I wouldn’t argue the point that more democrats support gun control than republicans, but I also know a whole bunch of blue collar labor guys who love their guns. Trying to boil the two parties down to two unique ideologies is deceptive. How do you have coal miners, who want to blow the tops off mountains, and hippy PETA folks who’d rather walk 20 miles than risk squashing a bug with their car’s windshield in the same party? Or religious types who would mandate state sanctioned vaginal probes (i.e. rape) for women seeking an abortion teamed up with libertarians who can’t stand it when the government tells them which part of the road they can and can’t drive on?

      The parties are not complete ideologies, they are competing oligarchies that represent various constituencies. The idea that two parties could adequately represent the basic ideologies of almost 320 million people is, on it’s face, laughable.

      • the blue collar labor (since when did the democrats have the market on “blue collar” labor, you’re making the same generalization as you accuse the article of making) guys are not the “Democrats” in question… the “Democrats” in question are the ones in the halls of power who legislate. As such, it IS about “Democrats’ extreme anti-gun ideology, plain and simple.”

      • I defy you to illustrate from any political system in which multiple political factions hold portions of the legislative power, a government that is NOT run by back-room deals where the minority parties ebb and flow and compromise and form voting blocks and factions to advance their minority agendas at the expense of the majority of the citizens.

        Need I point out that this is the very sort of system that allowed Adolf Hitler to take total dictatorial control of Germany in the ’30s or that has resulted in more than thirty extremely temporary governments in Italy since the war?

        The Democrat party is composed of just such a hodge-podge of Liberal and Progressive factions all aiming at a slightly similar big-government, welfare-state, details to be worked out at a later date. The Republican party is composed of moderates, extreme conservatives, and now Tea Party type conservatives, none of which can agree on a larger agenda or even agree to compromise within their own ranks. SO we do have, in effect, a multi-party system, even though you need to ally yourself with one major party or the other if you expect any chance of actually being elected.

        I have no problem with a legislative body gridlocked into being unable to produce new laws – this is a GOOD thing, but a body that is a constantly shifting band of co-conspirators is hardly what I think the Founders had in mind.

        Bottom line – the majority of the Liberal/Progressive Democrats in power will horse trade with the other left-wing groups on their pet projects in return for support on anti-Second Amendment legislation. Most Republicans, even most RINOs, will not.

  2. They can’t enforce the last unconstitutional law they past. What makes them think anyone will listen to this one? or are they trying to start a war in that state?

  3. Do we see the cops or the military using 10-round magazines? No? Of course not, because a 30-ROUND MAGAZINE IS STANDARD!! We need fewer spineless, craven politicians catering to the herbal tea crowd. If they want to mandate dinky magazine capacity, then it ought to be 100% tied to the same hobbling of police magazine capacity. No possible excuse.

    • Hey, fun is fun, but originally a 20-round magazine was standard, and I still like them better. With the XM-177-E2 I carried in Vietnam, there were ZERO 30-rd mags available, although the ARVN had 30 and 40-rd mags (never seen 40 since!) 20 is all that is necessary or convenient, but any infringement is unconstitutional. I want 20, you want 30, he wants 40, that guy over there wants 10, FINE! Government dictates in that regard are illegal, those who propose such should be imprisoned.

  4. “A separate, more exhaustive study undertaken by the non-partisan National Academy of Sciences in 2004 titled “Firearms and Violence, A Critical Review” examined twenty of the most Popular Gun Control laws or proposals and found not one, including those pertaining to limiting magazine capacity had ‘any statistically significant impact on crime or violent crime rates’.”

    But when the NAS talks about renewables, climate change or anything at all apart from the uselessness of gun laws, they’re “Stupid, donkey-nosed libtards.”

    Cherry-picking science is as stupid as cherry-picking the Constitution.

    While I’ll grant that climate change has little relevance on a gun blog, I wish to point out the idiocy of single issue voting.

    Magazine sizes and NFA will be relevant only briefly once food becomes scarce and brigandage commonplace.

    • You cant be serious?

      Man made climate change has been thoroughly debunked, and yet people still think it to be true.

      Meanwhile billions of dollars are being spent to curb a natural planetary phenomenon, funded by the taxpayer.

      • SOLAR phenomenon, not “planetary”. These are the same people who claim the Sun has of effect on Earth’s climate. REALLY, they do!

        And they have since admitted that there has been NO global warming for the past 19 years. NINETEEN!!!
        Russ, you need to get up to speed on this, bro.

      • Yup. I just shake my head in disbelief when they get all red in the face about “sequestering carbon,” and then cheerlead the destruction of rainforests (AKA the lungs of the Earth).

      • I see y’all are real good at toeing the Exxon Party line.

        Y’all hear tell that smokin’ is the best thing ye cain do fer y’rself? That there Terbaccie Institute done proved it!

    • Using sources that the opposition cherishes to disprove their arguments, seems quite reasonable. It is as if the NRA published a study that showed that gun ownership increased crime levels.

    • Russ,

      I wouldn’t hitch your horse to the climate change wagon. It’s some of the worst science I’ve ever seen. In particular, the “destabilization of global average temperatures” is not a provable hypothesis.

  6. They are fighting for their lives & not going to go quietly into the goodnight. Their way of life is under attack, the gravy train is running off the tracks. Whacha gonna do when citizens don’t need your f’n protection liberals? Get a real job?

  8. The same Loretta Weinberg, who was among a coven of female Legislators last Spring…
    Fixed it for you. (Though clutch is close).

      • @RockOnHellChild

        No, for a while now we’ve had the “reasonable” limit of 15 rounds. Or should I say we were allowed to have 15 round mags. I’m guessing as the limit was being passed originally, the politicians claimed that nobody needs more than 15. Well apparently now they believe nobody needs more than 10. In a year it will be 5, and eventually they might let us keep single shot shotguns, if that.

        And I just love how they’re calling it a compromise by also “relaxing” the law about transporting guns directly to and from the range. I guess I won’t be arrested anymore if I have to stop for gas on the way, or at a drive through. Oh yeah, that totally makes up for the 10 round mag limit.

  10. someone needs to enact rule .308
    I can’t… I’m too spineless. 🙁
    Or at the very least, I’m not there yet.

  11. Wrong title. It is not a war on “standard-capacity” magazines. It is a war on 15-round magazines, which for any number of firearms is below standard-capacity already.

    Just goes to show that pro-control legislatures are incapable of stopping, ever. Maryland had a 20-round limit, but made it 10. New Jersey has had a 15-round limit for a while, but that’s apparently no longer small enough. How long before Colorado legislature discovers that the 15-round limit they passed last year is just not small enough?

    Now, New York had a 10-round limit, so everybody was surely happy. Apparently not – some cities there (NYC for sure, possibly Buffalo as well) have 5-round limits. And it’s not like they haven’t tried to make it a 7-round limit statewide.

    The lesson is clear. No number is ever small enough. If someone says let’s compromise and make it a 30-round limit nationwide, you may as well drop that zero, in a few years.

    So, does Gov. Christie still have enough juice left in him for a veto? They are counting on the answer being no this year, what with the scandal and all.

    • Chris Christie has trivialized himself. He’s just another piece of NJ sleaze. He’s actually been that way since he entered politics back at age 31, deciding to try and knock his mentor out in a primary challenge. Then he advanced to making campaign claims that caused him to lose a libel suit, just to get into the state senate. He’s all strong-arm politics, no experience outside of political office, but above all, he’s Mr. NJ, all about special deals and ‘friends.’

    • “So, does Gov. Christie still have enough juice left in him for a veto? They are counting on the answer being no this year, what with the scandal and all.”

      This isn’t so much for crime fighting as to get Christie in the limelight and on the record as either a “gun nut” or a “gun grabber” prior to his run fro president. Either way, if this bill hits his desk, he’s screwed. (As though he had a shot at it anyway.)

    • If you drive 2-3 hours in any direction from anywhere in NJ, you can buy 20 or 30-rd mags for your AR, for less than $15 each, in quantities you cannot carry in your pickup. Why are you whining? Just IGNORE those stupid and unconstitutional laws! Bending over and saying “thank you, sir, may I have another?” is not the way to change anything. Check it out in your own media. Is anyone being picked on for having a 30-round mag? Of course not, it is silliness and everyone including the police know it! “Grandfathered” mags? Where is that printed on them? You are being SHEEP! When you bring 100 back from TX, all of them are clearly grandfathered, or maybe you hadn’t heard of the limit. Stop enabling!

      • “Is anyone being picked on for having 30-round mag?”

        No. They’re being picked on for having 15-round magazines that happen to fit 16 rounds, when forced. See Brian Aitken, referenced by RF. The only reason he initially avoided conviction on that charge was because the prosecutor failed to demonstrate that the rounds could feed reliably into a gun. A mere oversight. You can rest assured the prosecution will not make that mistake again.

        Law abiding citizens, by definition, abide by the law, right? (Just like everyone here always says that criminals, by definition, break them.) They follow the laws for many reasons, including the desire to avoid serving a mandatory minimum in state prison.

        Edit: NJ will almost certainly not grandfather magazines. Destroy them, turn them in, send/sell them out of state or risk going to jail.

  12. And the NRA will keep his so-called “A” rating, I suppose. This is NOT “your” NRA, folks. You really, really would do better to support GOA, JPFO, 2AF. ALL of them. It’s no longer “your” NRA.

    You dig me?

  13. So instead of toughening existing laws that might have, I dunno, kept the assbags who gunned down that lawyer in Newark before Christmas, in jail, they want to limit mag capacity. Yep, makes PERFECT sense.

  14. Ah, the famous slippery slope. The antis will never say how many is too many, even though we know that zero is their ultimate goal.

    We already (still) have people here in Colorado that think the 15 round limit that was rammed through the legislature last year is too many.

  15. BTW, the National Institute of Justice is pretty much a Government consultant agency to the police at the local level. They have many answers in search of questions, and they’re always begging for more study contracts (since DoJ does NOT fund them). In short, Government-sponsored Beltway Bandits.

  16. Well at least, unlike the seven round limit, there is a large number of ten round magazines for various handguns, since Ma and CA require them for handguns sold there.

  18. Liberals – constantly pushing magazine capacity down, while raising minimum wage – both by arbitrary numbers pulled out of their a$$

  19. Guy from NJ reporting here. Most of you are missing what’s happening here. The politicians know they are going to get the insane defacto ban on concealed carry overturned by the Supremes. That renders the ridiculous gun transportation laws moot. So they pretend like they are making a concession in exchange for lower round limits, but the reality is, they are bargaining with something that they don’t own.

    “Oh you can actually stop for gas on your way home from the pistol range now. Look at that! What? “shall issue” concealed carry allows you to do that anyway? Huh. Cuh-razy, right? Well, at least your pistol now only holds 10 rounds…”

    While it annoys me, NJ was the only state with a 15-round limit for a long time. That means no one makes 15-round magazines for the AR, essentially. Everything is custom pinned. But you can’t pin it yourself. Possession of the magazine (even if you don’t own the gun it fit yet) would be a felony. So to actually get an NJ-legal AR mag, for example, you pretty much had to buy the 10-round ones anyway. And same with most hand guns that had a capacity above 15 rounds. You would have a difficult time finding ones limited to 15 rounds, and when you did, they were ridiculously expensive, so most people opted for the 10-round ones. While I’m not making excuses for this new round of insanity, market forces have already been guiding people towards this for a while anyway.

    And then there’s Christie. I know he’s not popular by any stretch on this board, but he stands a decent chance of vetoing this bill. After the SAFE act, NJ decided to create a “commission” to make recommendations on ways to curb gun violence, and even that commission found that reducing the magazine limits would be ineffective. That’s why the bill was shelved last year. Now that Christie has been re-elected locally, if he plans on making a 2016 run to Washington, he will need to strike this one down and make the state legislature overrule him.

    • Don’t count on Crispy vetoing anything. After that whole GW bridge debacle, Christie is weak, so the Dems might say something like “sign this 10 round capacity limit and we’ll help you with some good PR.” He’d sing it in a second, the corrupt sellout bastard politician that he is.

  20. DAMN IT!!! I freaking hate NJ!!! I think it might be time to start thinking about moving out of this state, and not just because of their ass backward gun laws.

    I wonder how many criminals and crimes will be effected by this law….oh yea exactly ZERO!!!
    You would think they would pass legislation that would protect the law abiding citizen and not the gang bangin’ pieces of sh*t.

    Christie is too busy stuffing his face with doughnuts to care about preserving what little 2nd amendment rights we have left. I doubt he knows ANYTHING about guns. Kind of hard to be a gun enthusiast when you can’t touch your hands together.

    • Also….would the upcoming ruling by the SCOTUS on the 2a over rule these magazine limits? If it goes pro-2a, which signs point to yes so far…but who knows.

  21. Will be interesting to see if Christie signs this. On the one hand, it will severely curtail his chances at getting the nomination, on the other hand, as said, he is weak from Bridgegate. IMO, he’d be best to still veto it, as no amount of “help” from the Democrats regarding Bridgegate will counteract the negative press he’ll get in the GOP from signing it.

  22. Please contact the Senate Majority Office immediately at 609-847-3700 and respectfully ask them to stop attacking lawful gun owners and focus on real problems in New Jersey. (The New Jersey Legislature) I meant to say the criminals.

    • I called and left them criminals a message. Pretty much said “stop attacking lawful gun owners and focus on real problems in New Jersey”, short and to the point. Hopefully more people will call.

  23. If an anti-gun state, such as NJ, unconstitutionally jails an out-of-stater for a frivolous weapons charge, the home state of that individual should be morally obligated to get their citizen back, by force if necessary.

  24. Ok,you’re going to wave the bloody shirt of Sandy Hook,Ok,we are going to bring the Mom in Michigan ,protecting her children from three THUGS WEARING HOODIES( Trevon/ Holywood hello?..) who used a high capacity magazine to thwart those aholes even as one of them started back in the house a second time with a gun.He only retreated when she began firing AGAIN! ( thanks to a high capacity magazine.
    Oh by the way..,Mom’s Demand Action? ,there ya go plenty of action.This Mom wasn’t singing Kumebya to her attackers as you would have her do Shannon Watts,you knuckle head!

  25. New Jersey ,breaks every law in the book on their restriction practices.Not only are they in violation of the 2nd Amendment ,they violate the fourth most the time with Illegal search and seizure .Plus they violate the 1968 Firearm Owners Protection Act article 18 ;transportation of a firearm through states of the union.
    But what else is new when you have Liberal,idiot Democrats running things!

  26. It’s a lot easier to arbitrarily dictate the amount of bullets one can carry in a gun than get serious about crime, which means citizens teaching criminals that there is no appeal process when facing an armed victim.

  27. Just read the story about Adam Lanza, such as at http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2013/12/despite_files_newtown_school_s.html to really read about crazy and warning signs for years. Then think about all the ways the Newtown horror could have been prevented.

    Why is society allowing itself to be distracted by reducing the size of the magazines, which would have done nothing for those kids, when the article shows you all the signals that could have been used to stop someone who was visibly crazy and a threat for years.

    Even trained experts need large magazines to defend themselves and protect us, why would you want to take the capacity away from sane people who actually need alot of bullets to defend themselves, especially when under stress of defending themselves from criminals.

    Everyone in the legislature should have to read that article or the history of Adam Lanza. And then, if someone can say with a straight face, that what they get from that is that the size of Adam’s magazine was what caused the tragedy or is the way to fix it, should be recalled for their own insanity.

  28. Will this apply to the minions of the state as well? OK so that question is rhetorical.
    Mag capacity is relatively meaningless. Anyone who can do El Presidente in around 8 seconds can deal with the “tactical limitation” (sarcasm) of having < a 15 round mag.
    NJ is a freedom nightmare. Either voters are ignorant or they have a government that ignores freedom. I wouldn't live in that hellhole for anything.

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