Coulter: High-Capacity Magazine Put Loughner “At A Disadvantage” During Massacre

Ann Coulter claims Tucson shooter Jared Loughner was at a “disadvantage” due the the 33-round high-capacity magazine he used:

In fact, high-capacity mags put a predator like [Jared] Loughner at a disadvantage because they are so long, unwieldy and difficult to conceal.

Coulter does not indicate whether she asked any of the people present when Loughner killed six people and shot 13 others if they thought he was “at a disadvantage” because of the “unwieldy” high-capacity magazine he used. I'll go ahead and assume she did not. For the record, Loughner was subdued when he eventually had to stop to re-load after firing 31 shots.

Coulter's rather odd views on guns are unsurprising when one considers the “experts” she relies upon:

There's only one policy of any kind that has ever been shown to deter mass murder: concealed-carry laws. In a comprehensive study of all public, multiple-shooting incidents in America between 1977 and 1999, the highly regarded economists John Lott and Bill Landes found that concealed-carry laws were the only laws that had any beneficial effect.

The “highly regarded” John Lott has been caught using fraudulent data (and lying about it to cover his tracks) in his concealed-carry studies. And the National Research Council's Committee to Improve Research Information and Data on Firearm said of its examination of research conducted by Lott and others on concealed-carry laws: “despite a large body of research, the committee found no credible evidence that the passage of right-to-carry laws decreases or increases violent crime.”

Finally, Coulter appears unaware of actual public attitudes about high-capacity magazines:

During the presidential campaign, Obama said: “I don't know of any self-respecting hunter that needs 19 rounds of anything. You don't shoot 19 rounds at a deer, and if you do, you shouldn't be hunting.” It would have been more accurate for him to end that sentence after the word “hunter.”

It's so adorable when people who wouldn't know a high-capacity magazine from Vanity Fair start telling gun owners what they should want and need.

According to a recent bipartisan poll, a strong majority of Americans, and a plurality of those who live in households with guns, think the sale of high-capacity magazines should be banned.