politics

 

WASHINGTON – Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, D-Conn., is haunted by many things that emerged from the investigation of the December mass shooting at a Newtown elementary school. Among them is the nagging question of what prompted the gunman, Adam Lanza, to put down his assault rifle after killing 20 children and pick up the pistol he used to end his own life.

“We do know that historically in these instances, amateurs have trouble switching magazines,” Murphy said, referring to the high-capacity ammunition feeding device used by Lanza to shoot scores of bullets in seconds. “I believe, and many of the parents there believe, that if Lanza had to switch cartridges nine times verses two times there would likely still be little boys and girls alive in Newtown today.”

It is that conviction that has helped put fresh scrutiny on the size of magazines as Congress debates new gun laws.

While influential lawmakers in both parties view a proposed ban on assault weapons as politically toxic, lawmakers seem increasingly open to a ban on high-capacity magazines, like the 15- and 30-round devices that have been used in shooting rampages from Aurora, Colo., to Tucson, Ariz., where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head, to Newtown.

Constitutional lawyers, including many conservatives, generally believe that limiting magazine size falls well within the boundaries of recent Supreme Court decisions on gun rights, and evidence suggests that a ban on large magazines would have reduced the number of those killed in mass shootings.

A growing number of lawmakers say they see a distinct difference between limits on magazine sizes, which they would support, and an assault weapons ban, which they would not.

“I see them as separate,” said Sen. Angus King Jr., I-Maine. “It’s the difference between appearance and functionality. High-capacity magazines have contributed to a lot of these tragedies.”

Even Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate majority leader who has long stood with the National Rifle Association and remains firmly against an assault weapons ban, has shown receptiveness to a ­magazine size limit for civilian gun owners. “I think it is something we ought to discuss,” he said.

But the issue also gives pause to many lawmakers, ­particularly Senate Democrats up for re-election in states that generally support gun rights. They seem torn over whether a restriction on ammunition erodes the rights of law-abiding gun owners, as its opponents insist, or is merely a mild annoyance for those owners in the name of public safety.

“I’m ready to step off the status quo on guns,” said Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va. “But I’ve got to work this one through in my mind.”

In a New York Times/CBS News poll last month of 1,110 adults nationwide, 63 percent of respondents said they would favor a ban on high-capacity magazines, while 34 percent opposed the idea. The NRA has staunchly opposed a ban, arguing that it would have no effect on gun violence and that it would leave such equipment in the hands of criminals alone.

In a 2004 report for the National Institute of Justice that studied the impact of the 1994 assault weapons ban, the authors found that high-capacity magazines were used in crimes much more often than assault weapons were.

They said that guns equipped with those magazines tended to account for a higher share of guns used in the killing of police officers and in mass public shootings, though those are a small percentage of overall gun deaths.

Many gun experts and lawmakers believe the two areas ripe for legislative consensus are a bill that would make background checks for gun buyers nearly universal, and a measure that would create a federal statute against straw purchasing, which would give prosecutors better tools to go after people who buy guns that they sell or give to others to commit crimes.

“If you prioritize things in terms of their value and likelihood of them getting passed,” said James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, “I don’t think there is anyone who will tell you that background checks aren’t the most important thing to get done.”

Law enforcement officials say that combining background checks and straw purchasing penalties would do much to reduce the criminal use of guns.