Congress Votes to Ban High-capacity Magazines

High-capacity magazines | Jose Francisco Del Valle Mojica, Flickr

WASHINGTON, DC–In its first piece of major legislation after the deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, this week Congress passed a ban on high-capacity magazines.

Like most gun control legislation, the move was intended as a mostly symbolic gesture to satisfy voters’ demand to “do something”–without really doing much.*
However, due to vague language and a regrettable homophone, the legislators accidentally made a very noticeable change in the law.

The bill specified that any magazine “with more than 10 units” would be banned from store shelves. While theoretically meant to apply specifically to gun ammunition, in practice, the bill will also prohibit sales of National Geographic, Scientific American, and all other periodicals that exceed 10 pages.

The initial sponsor of the legislation said he intends to introduce a new bill to amend the language as soon as possible.




*This is a satirical post. The event described above is fictional.