EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of a series of articles on gun rights. Each addresses a common anti-gun trope.

“The only reason to own a high capacity magazine is to kill lots of people very quickly!”

Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are the two favorite bogeymen of today’s anti-gun activists. Both are used as emotional props in the fight to further infringe gun rights, and both are the subject of a great deal of misinformation and outright ignorance. The ignorance behind “assault weapons” is a topic for another day; today, I will focus on high capacity magazines.

By most common definitions, “high capacity” means “more than ten,” ten being a semi-magical line of demarcation between “normal” and “scary.” The urge to ban high capacity magazines is invariably tied to the handful of mass-shooting massacres of the past couple decades (e.g. Columbine, Sandy Hook, San Bernadino), where the murderers fired hundreds of rounds of ammunition in a short period of time.

But… how short is “short?” Police didn’t enter Sandy Hook until 14 minutes after the shooting started. Police did not enter Columbine until 47 minutes after the shooting started. Similar response times occurred in the San Bernadino, Orlando, Virginia Tech and other mass shootings, and, just about invariably, the shooters had finished their rampages. We shouldn’t be surprised by this – barring the immediate presence of law enforcement at a location (hold that thought), it will invariably take some time for 911 calls to happen, for dispatchers to do their bit, and for police to travel to a location.

Consider those minutes within the context of how long it takes to swap a magazine. This video shows just how little time it takes, and this video goes into greater depth and comparison. The difference between smaller number of high-capacity magazines and a larger number of lower-capacity magazines is trivial, and certainly would not hinder or delay a shooter any appreciable amount of time. This is true even for relatively inexperienced shooters – a little bit of practice is all it takes to get “good enough.”

But, what of the possibility that the time between magazines offers opportunities for people to tackle the shooter or something of that sort?

These mass shootings aren’t Hollywood gun fu choreography. They are chaotic events, with locations and targets chosen by shooters who are interested in killing people rather than being taken down. Furthermore, there is the “gun-free zone” effect. Some research suggests that the vast majority of mass shootings take place in designated gun-free zones. Others argue with this finding, but their arguments often involve the expansion of what qualifies as a “mass shooting” well beyond what you and I normally think of when we hear the term. I suspect the people who think that keeping high capacity magazines out of the hands of mass shooters will make a difference in the death tolls are the same people who think that police should be trained to shoot bad guys in the arm, leg or shoulder rather than center-of-mass. In other words – fantasizers and folks who haven’t a clue about guns or shooting.

But, but – why do people need high capacity magazines? What’s wrong with limiting size? If it saves just one life, isn’t it worth it?

What of the people such a ban hurts?

Consider self-defense. Consider the chaos of a situation where someone is attempting to defend one’s self or others against an armed assailant. In stark contrast with mass shootings, where the shooter typically faces no armed opposition, a situation where you are using a gun against someone trying to kill you is not a situation where you want to be worrying about reloading. Since such situations do not involve the serenity and discipline of the target range, many shots taken in self-defense will miss or fail to incapacitate. Why have law enforcement agencies across the country given up their six-shot revolvers in favor of semi-automatics that take magazines with capacities of 15 or more? Clearly, there’s a benefit, when one’s life is at risk, not to have to stop and reload. Magazine bans aren’t “common sense” or victimless. They don’t come without a real, human cost.

As with so many other such arguments, opposition to high capacity magazines ignores the adverse impact on good and law-abiding people in pursuit of a chimerical desire to “do something, anything” in response to a horror or tragedy. High-capacity magazine bans will do nothing to hinder the next madman or monster who decides to do harm to others. They’re just another useless and counterproductive assault on our liberties, and when they fail to produce utopian results, they’ll be followed by even more efforts to restrict the rights of the law-abiding.

You can read some more perspectives on this topic here, here, here, here, and here.

So,

Gun rights lesson #419: Banning high capacity magazines will do nothing to slow or deter mass murderers, but will put those defending themselves and others from armed assailants at greater risk. As the old adage goes, when seconds count, the police are minutes away.

• About the Author

About Peter Venetoklis

I am twice-retired, a former rocket engineer and a former small business owner. At the very least, it makes for interesting party conversation. I'm also a life-long libertarian, I engage in an expanse of entertainments, and I squabble for sport.

Nowadays, I spend a good bit of my time arguing politics and editing this website.

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