More on the terrible price of gun control

OMAHA, Neb. -- The worst mass slaying in Nebraska history claimed the lives of five men and three women, plus the shooter.

ABC News has confirmed with two sources that the gun used at Westroads Mall was an SKS-style assault rifle with two magazines taped together found at the scene. ABC reported that taping magazines together is a technique that allows the shooter to reload more quickly.

That may be why witnesses heard so many shots when Robert A. Hawkins, 20, opened fire on Wednesday afternoon.

First the SKS is not an assault rifle. An assault rifle is, by definition, a rifle capable of both semi-automatic and full automatic fire. The SKS is only a semi-automatic rifle.

Second the SKS has a ten round internal magazine which is either charged one cartridge at a time or from a stripper clip. There are 30 round magazines which are offered for the SKS but in my experience they are very unreliable. There is also a conversion, which requires gunsmithing, which will modify the SKS to accept AK-47 style magazines. However the price of buying the SKS and then having the work done on it to have it take AK magazines is much more than the price of a semi-automatic AK-47 variant so these conversions are rare.

My guess is that the shooter had an AK semi-auto lookalike, which means that it is a good thing that he didn't have a hunting gun like the Remington modle 750 in a truly effective caliber like .308 or 30-06. Cause then the death toll would have been higher.