NBC News Lobbies for Magazine Disconnect for Handguns

Though NBC News’s new report on magazine disconnects doesn’t issue an outright demand that the feature become mandatory on handguns, the news organization leaves little doubt where it stands with commentary like this:

A 64-year-old grandfather in Texas ejects the magazine from his gun, preparing to clean it, pointing the barrel toward the wall. His grandson’s friend is in a bedroom on the other side.

Each thinks the gun in their hand is unloaded because the magazine holding the bullets has been removed. 

None of them realize there is still a single live round in each gun’s chamber, bullets that will kill their neighbor, their Marine buddy, and their grandson’s friend when they pull the trigger.

It’s a danger that gunmakers have been aware of since the advent of the first semiautomatic pistols — yet it continues to kill.

NBC reports that over the past 24 years, “at least 277 people have been killed in gun accidents in which the shooter believed the weapon was unloaded because the magazine had been dislodged or removed.” Each one of those deaths is tragic, but it wasn’t just the lack of a magazine disconnect feature that lead to those shootings. As NBC reluctantly noted:

… industry groups and firearms experts say these accidents are relatively rare and happen only after people have violated the cardinal rules of gun safety: that all guns should be treated as if they are loaded and should never be pointed at someone the user doesn’t intend to shoot. 

That is absolutely true, and it’s not like this is some new rule. In my office, I have a poster from the NRA dating back to the 1950s laying out the safety rules for gun owners. The first one on the list is “Treat every gun as if it were loaded until you personally prove otherwise.” 

NBC News also spoke to NSSF’s Larry Keane, who pointed out that if the magazine “gets dislodged or damaged and you can’t function a firearm in a life-or-death situation, using a firearm for self-defense — that’s a significant problem.” 

There are plenty of options available for those consumers who want a pistol with a magazine disconnect feature, but NBC News leans heavily on the notion that the feature should be mandatory on pistols. 

More than a hundred years ago, gunmakers devised a way to prevent this type of accident from ever happening. A small metal piece known as a magazine disconnect keeps a pistol from firing if the magazine is removed. Many gun safety advocates see the device as a simple solution to foreseeable tragedy — one that would work automatically, with no user effort or knowledge required.

But gunmakers don’t have to include the device in their weapons. So, for the most part, they don’t.

“It would be a design defect in any other conceivable product in the American marketplace,” said Gary Klein, a former assistant attorney general of Massachusetts and an advocate for safer guns. “We wouldn’t tolerate this in a toaster.”

It’s not a design defect because, as Keane noted, there’s a valid reason why some gun owners don’t want a magazine disconnect for their self-defense firearm; they want to be able to fire off at least one round if their magazine is damaged or dropped. NBC News acknowledged in its report that many “law enforcement agencies that previously required magazine disconnects in standard-issue weapons have largely moved to guns without them.” That’s not because they’re unconcerned with negligent or unintentional discharges, but because they are concerned for officer safety. 

If consumers want a pistol with a magazine disconnect, they’re out there and available for sale. As with so-called smart guns, I think the vast majority of gun owners have no issue with firearms that have a magazine disconnect feature. But when those products or designs become compulsory, that’s a problem… for gun owners, if not gun control advocates and their allies in the media.