ALBANY – Lawmakers use props all the time to promote some bill.
But Sen. Eric Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat, took that practice a step further Wednesday: he brought a semi-automatic assault rifle, bullet clips and even some undercover video shot of himself buying the weaponry at some Albany-area gun shops.
With a state trooper standing guard in an adjacent room and under orders not to bring live ammunition into the Capitol, Adams used the rifle show-and-tell to push his legislation to ban bullet magazines that can carry up to 30 rounds.
“You don’t hunt deer with 30-round clips,’’ Adams said of opposition by some gun groups to his bill.
Holding the FS2000 gun in his hand, Adams said his bill will close a loophole to a 1994 federal and state law that permits the 30-round clips to still be sold.
Adams, a former New York City police captain who owns three guns himself, said the larger clips are too dangerous and can permit terrorists or others to kill and injure large numbers of people before having to re-load.
The bill by Adams and a companion bill in the Assembly would ban the sale, purchase or ownership of the 30-round clips. Present law allows the sale of the magazines if they were made before 1994, but Adams said the law is easily skirted by gun sellers.
Adams said he is a Second Amendment supporter. “This is not an anti-gun ownership bill,’’ Adams said.
-- Tom Precious
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