Organizers of a rally cheekily named “A Farewell to Arms Freedom Festival” on Saturday gave away 1,500 high-capacity magazines to rally attendees to protest a new Colorado law which bans such magazines in that state. The new law permits owners of large magazines who own them when the law takes effect today to continue to possess those magazines, so the magazine giveaway effectively ensures that 1,500 more people will be able to ignore the law.
As Capt. Mark Kelly, the husband of gun violence victim and former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) explained to Congress last January, a ban on high-capacity magazines likely would have cut short the shooting rampage that nearly killed his wife. “When [the shooter] tried to reload one 33-round magazine with another 33-round magazine, he dropped it, and a woman named Patricia Maisch grabbed it, and it gave bystanders time to tackle him.” Had the shooter been forced to use smaller magazines, he likely could have been tackled sooner.