Casey Kovarik: Exemption on high-capacity ammunition magazine ban poses safety risk

Los Angeles has joined the conversation on gun control.

In late July, a ban on firearm magazines with capacity for 10 or more rounds of ammunition was enacted in the city. The ban exempted current officers, but a frustrated Los Angeles Police Protective League, which advocates for the police force, chose to challenge this ban anyway. Now, an exemption for reserve and retired police officers is being voted upon by the Los Angeles City Council after passing 3-1 in a city council committee focused on public safety.

LAPPL and council members argue that more armed retired officers are good in case of an unforeseen large-scale emergency so more “good guys” will be armed and able to deal with this hypothetical threat. But this isn’t going to work, because putting more high-capacity magazines in circulation does not make anyone safer.

An exemption for anyone other than current officers does not make sense. The ban on large magazine capacity weapons is a good step to increasing gun control, as guns with more rounds of ammunition are always a potential danger.

First, the facts are clear: States with more stringent gun controls have fewer incidents of gun-related deaths. Keeping any kind of unnecessary magazines outside of the hands of accountable police will be a detriment to saving lives.

This fact wasn’t lost on everyone at city hall. Councilwoman Nury Martinez was the only one on the committee to vote against the proposal.

“If we are truly committed to the idea of protecting families and loved ones from avoidable gun injuries and death, then I do not see how exemptions from the high-capacity magazine law make us any safer,” she said in a statement from her office.

The conversation has been ongoing in Westwood too.

Zach Helder, Undergraduate Students Association Council external vice president, said that he wants to make UCLA part of a national student movement for gun control because campuses are often the populations affected by mass shootings.

“I’m frankly not sure why there ought to be any exemptions. … College students, and thus the officers of our student association, are increasingly distressed about the persistence of national gun violence against innocent students, and more generally, innocent Americans,” Helder said in a statement.

University police were reached out to for comment, but said they had not yet discussed this legislation.

Proponents like Councilman Mitchell Englander, a reserve officer himself, claim that these weapons will be safe because they are in trained hands. Training of the retired and reserve officers is a good precaution, but it does not completely expel the danger of having more high-capacity magazines out in the public because of the velocity at which they can inflict harm.

Former officers can still make mistakes, and unfortunately there is also a small minority of bad police officers. That still means the potential for more dangerous weapons to get in the wrong hands or to be used incorrectly still exists.

Large magazine weapons are not protection rifles. They are assault rifles. In situations of self-defense, weapons this large are not necessary and present a completely unnecessary danger to the community.

There is no civilian defensive situation in which high-capacity magazines are necessary, and high-capacity magazines pose an unnecessary risk to the community. No one, including retired and reserve police officers, should be exempt from the ban.