The San Diego judge who presided over the case of Jared Lee Loughner has made public his opinion on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in the wake of last week's massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
U.S. Federal Judge Larry Burns sentenced Loughner to seven life terms plus 140 years in federal prison for a shooting rampage in Tucson that left six dead and wounded 13 in 2011.
Burns is a self-proclaimed conservative gun-owner, who was appointed by George W. Bush. He wrote an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times Thursday explaining his reasons for being behind a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
"It says something that half of the nation's deadliest shootings occurred after the ban expired, including the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn.," he writes in the Los Angeles Times.
"It also says something that it has not even been two years since Loughner's rampage, and already six mass shootings have been deadlier."