How Massachusetts Gun Control Law Hurt Armed Citizens’ Response Should Be News

The shooting on a highway in Cambridge, Massachusetts, could have been bigger news. However, for that to have happened, a lot of innocent people would have had to die, and I’m thrilled that didn’t happen. It should have still been bigger news, though, because of the actions of a man, reportedly a former Marine, who engaged the active shooter.

People like that need to be talked about more, because heroism is real and rare, and societies need heroes. They don’t need the self-aggrandizing type that buys into their own BS and tries to cash in on the podcast circuit, but we need to know that there are people out there who will step up when needed, then go back to their lives.

Like this guy.

And, perhaps more importantly, we need to talk about how little ammo he had. I talked about it, of course, and I’m not the only one who has, but the mainstream media didn’t say crap, which is something the folks at American Rifleman are less than thrilled about.

The story received a lot of attention, but it soon faded from the headlines. This armed citizen was just too good to be forced into an anti-gun narrative. Indeed, few reported that the former Marine only had eight rounds in his Glock and that he ran out of ammo.

Eight rounds is obviously not enough for an extended gunfight against a criminal who came prepared with multiple magazines.

The armed citizen either didn’t have a spare magazine for his pistol or he could not get back to his car’s lockbox to get one. Still, he directed others to get to cover and made the perpetrator pause as he dealt with an armed citizen.

…

The onerous gun-control laws in Massachusetts, however, should have gotten more bad press. In the state, it is generally illegal to sell, offer for sale, transfer, or possess magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds; there is an exception, as some concealed carries still qualify for a narrow exemption (primarily “pre-ban” magazines lawfully possessed before Sept. 13, 1994). So, this armed citizen did not have the option of having what would be considered a standard-capacity magazine for most pistols (including Glocks).

The responding police officer was likely armed with a SIG Sauer P320, as this is the official service pistol for Massachusetts’ state troopers, but he might have had a full-size Smith & Wesson M&P duty pistol, as this was the previous service pistol. (It changed in 2023.) In either case, the trooper likely had multiple 17-round magazines.

There are real consequences to gun-control laws designed to disarm law-abiding citizens. In this case, had the trooper arrived a minute later, this armed citizen might have been killed.

As I noted when I talked about this nearly a month ago, the reality is that the average number of shots per fatality is around four. That’s mostly criminals shooting people, mind you. Magazine restrictions do nothing to stop this because, yeah, why would they? Even a revolver has a capacity greater than four shots, unless you’re shooting a mighty small revolver or, maybe, some mighty big rounds, I suppose. Still, magazine capacity does little to nothing to hurt the criminals.

But on that bridge in Cambridge, it could have cost an actual hero his life.

Had he just had a standard-capacity magazine for his Glock, as most have a much greater capacity than eight rounds, he might have been fine. My Glock 19 has nearly twice as much capacity, after all, and that alone might have been ample ammunition for an engagement like this.

See, the problem is and has always been that the bad guys have the initiative. They get to pick the time, place, and nature of an attack. Armed citizens are left in a position where they can respond or run. They don’t get to do like the hero in an ’80s action movie, strap on every gun they own, a few grenades, and step outside to take on the villain. It doesn’t work like that. They have to use what they have.

And Massachusetts’s magazine capacity limits damn near killed him.

Meanwhile, the state’s violent crime rate is only marginally better than my home state of Georgia, which has no such limits on magazine capacity, but a fraction of their median household income.

Strange, ain’t it?

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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