This petition is to call for laws that limit the capacity of all magazines sold from now on in the United States to be 10 rounds maximum. Also, the age at which assault rifles and handguns could be purchased would be set at the federal level to 21 years old.

Background information and reasoning 

On May 24th, 2022 one of the worst crimes in modern history took place. A terrible human entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas and proceeded to gun down 21 people and wounded another 17 people in a rampage using an AR-15 type assault rifle. 19 of the dead were fourth grade students. This came on the heels of two other particularly bad mass shootings earlier in the 7 day span. All of these were made possible by one thing. This thing is high capacity magazines. Furthermore, the shooter in Uvalde had just turned 18, and had bought the assault rifle and at least seven 30 round magazines on his birthday. He had all seven magazines with him when he started shooting, carrying a total of 210 rounds which needed no action other than to be fired. He wound up using 142 of them in the school. He only had to reload 4 times to do this. He fired at the children so many times that some of the dead children were so disfigured they needed DNA testing to be identified.

This is inexcusable. There is NO real reason on earth other than to kill others for high capacity magazines. None at all. This petition is to call for laws that limit the capacity of all magazines sold from now on in the United States to be 10 rounds maximum. All existing magazines of a size greater than this could be exchanged for a $20 prepaid visa card each, funded by the federal government. Two years after the passage of this law possession of high capacity magazines would become illegal, and be punishable with a civil fine of $250 per magazine. The money from this would be placed in a fund to subsidize the burials of mass shooting victims. Furthermore, the age at which assault rifles and handguns could be purchased would be set at the federal level to 21 years old, with refusal by a state to enforce these laws to be punishable by loss of federal infrastructure funding.

The name for this bill that we suggest is the Federal Firearms Responsibility Act (FFRA). This petition is the brainchild of two parents who have no formal political background and both have children in the age range of the slain children, who are tired of living in fear for our children’s lives. Turning schools into prisons is not the answer. Teachers are not soldiers, nor do they want to be. Police are needed in other roles than simple static defense, and children deserve to see the sun during recess, not cower in some hell bunker of a modern dystopian school. Removing the ability for evil people to shoot children as fast as they can pull the trigger 30 rounds at a time will not prevent all shootings, but it will make it significantly harder for people to perpetrate seemingly endless rampages. Even reloading gives time to escape or to attack a shooter. Raising the age to 21 is common sense as well, as we limit many dangerous adult activities to that age. An exception may be made for those who have served our country in the military on the age restriction. Owning military weapons is inherently a serious responsibility. It is time we treated it as such.