Thirty-round gun clips have only one purpose: To kill every child in the classroom.
Defining assault weapons is difficult, too prone to loopholes. Expend tremendous political effort, and loopholes will still abound. Gun background checks are worthless in massacres such as Newtown, Conn., because the killer's first crime is his last crime. Tougher laws cannot punish the perpetrators because these deeds usually end in suicide. Mental health systems cannot identify, much less incarcerate, potential mass killers in a nation of more than 300 million people.
Selling gun clips of 30 or even 100 rounds makes it easy for mass killers. We cannot eliminate these young men, but we can make it harder for them.
Limit the size of all gun clips to six rounds (the proverbial six-shooter), and students in classrooms and patrons in movie theaters will have a chance. The six-shooter idea will make sense to most Americans. It is part of our history.
Case in point: A student walked into Columbia High School in East Greenbush with a shotgun in 2004. He was only able to get off three shots in the hallway before being subdued by faculty. He did not have a high-capacity clip. With a high-capacity clip, he could have expended dozens of shots.
WILLIAM COLGAN
Rensselaer