Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette, the lead Democratic sponsor of a federal bill to ban high-capacity magazines, is apparently unaware that such magazines can be reloaded and reused, according to a comment she made at a Denver Post-sponsored forum on gun control on Tuesday.
When asked how limiting the number of bullets in magazines would help reduce violence, she replied: “I will tell you these are ammunition, they’re bullets, so the people who have those now, they’re going to shoot them. So if you ban them in the future, the number of these high-capacity magazines is going to decrease dramatically over time, because the bullets will have been shot and there won’t be any more available.”
Some audience members laughed, but gun-rights advocates weren’t amused.
“It’s extremely alarming that Rep. DeGette is running federal legislation to ban magazine clips, when she doesn’t even know what a magazine clip is,” Colorado GOP spokesman Owen Loftus told the Denver Post. “Rep. DeGette’s comments show that Democrats are more concerned with appeasing their radical base than standing up for responsible, law abiding citizens.”
Colorado state Sen. Greg Brophy, one of the most vocal Republican opponents to Colorado’s new gun laws, told The Daily Caller News Foundation that DeGette’s comment was “stunningly stupid.”
“I would think that if you’re going to sponsor a bill regulating [firearms], you’d at least want to know how they worked,” he said.
At the same forum, DeGette also mocked a senior citizen who said the state’s new gun laws would put him at a significant disadvantage in a firefight.
DeGette replied that he was lucky to live in Denver, where the police department could come to his aid “within minutes.”
“You’d probably be dead anyway if they had that kind of firepower,” DeGette continued.
DeGette and fellow Colorado Rep. Ed Perlmutter are sponsoring a bill in Congress to ban magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. President Barack Obama was in Denver Wednesday to urge Congress to act on this and other gun control bills.
Colorado recently passed a law banning magazines that hold more than 15 rounds and those that can be easily converted to hold more. The sponsor of that bill, state Rep. Rhonda Fields, didn’t realize that practically every magazine for sale can be easily converted to hold more bullets, because they have a removable base plate that can be replaced with an after-market extender that increases their capacity.
But Fields at least seemed to understand that ammunition magazines aren’t sold pre-loaded and that they’re not disposable.
DeGette’s office did not reply to a request for comment.
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