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Updated 03/03/2011 05:54 AM

Senator's proposals would ban high-volume bullet magazines

By: Erin Connolly

A downstate senator is hoping to ban the sale of powerful bullet magazines in New York. Senator Eric Adams said the state would be safer by making it illegal to purchase high capacity magazines. Some say it's necessary, while others feel new restrictions won't do a thing and are unconstitutional. Our Erin Connolly has the details.

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ALBANY, N.Y. -- A hidden camera video shows New York State Senator Eric Adams purchasing a 30-round bullet magazine at a gun store in East Greenbush. It's similar to the magazine used in the Tucson Arizona shooting.

State Senator Eric Adams said, ''We don't need an Arizona in Albany before we realize 30-round clips are the wrong thing to have.''

Currently, 30-round magazines are legally sold in New York because of a loophole in existing law. Any 30-round clip manufactured before 1994 is legal, but most of the time it's difficult to determine when the magazine was made. Senator Adams is introducing legislation to make all 30-round clips illegal.

Adams said, ''This isn't an anti-gun ownership bill. This is an anti-giving someone large sums of ammunition. You don't hunt deer with 30-round clips.''

But some gun advocates say we don't need gun control, we need crime control.

Tom King, the President of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association said, ''The legal and lawful gun owners of this country are not the problem. It's the criminals. Put the criminals in jail Eric Adams. You know that and I know that, don't take the easy way out.''

Adams says stricter gun laws are needed and he believes this bill will help protect the general public as well as law enforcement officers.

Adams said, ''I don't think when our forefathers stated the right to bear arms, they weren't thinking about this. I think a musket and one ball was in their mindset. They didn't imagine you could have something that would discharge 30 rounds in 60 seconds.''

King said, ''It's demonizing a mechanical object rather than going after the core problem, and the core problem is violence and drugs in the streets.''

As for the bill, Adams has sponsored it in the Senate. Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries will take it up in the Assembly.