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Magazine Capacity Muckraking — 9 Comments

  1. One other point to make is the “time factor” involved in changing out a spent magazine. The amount of time required to drop and replace a spent magazine is minimal, at best, and even one not “well-trained” to do rapid magazine changes can accomplish that feat in less than two seconds. So, considering the amount of time spent shooting …. the difference between 100 rounds from a single magazine and 100 rounds from 10 round magazines is about 20 seconds.
    Then, consider the ‘functionality’ of any magazine of more than 30 rounds – THEY DON’T GENERALLY WORK ALL THAT WELL, and tend to jam – the amount of time required to clear a jam and chamber another round will pretty much negate any difference in the time it takes to fire 100 rounds.
    Then, consider the weight of a 100 round magazine and how ‘easily’ it can be changed.

    The point is not how many rounds there are in a magazine – the point is … THERE ARE BAD PEOPLE WHO DO BAD THINGS. Herding everyone into an enclosed area and preventing those people providing their own protection is one of the root causes of mass shootings.
    Virtually every ‘mass shooter’ chose the location based on ‘population density’, ‘target vulnerability’, and ‘shooter safety’.

  2. With the speed a “low capacity” (10 round) magazine can be ejected and a full magazine inserted, a “10 round” law has virtually no effect on the number of people a sick-o can kill.
    However, it does give the ILLUSION that politicians are “doing something” and they can spew their ACCOMPLISHMENT during their next campaign.

  3. A friend in San Francisco whom I characterize as a genetic political Progressive invited me here in Phoenix to a vigil featuring Representative Pelosi in commemoration of the then recent MPS. I replied with these easily gathered numbers of homicides between January and September of 2017:

    598 Detroit
    539 LA
    500 Chicago
    300 Baltimore
    197 SF Bay Area
    172 St. Louis
    2306 TOTAL

    I suggested to my friend, based on the unusually detailed data from the Baltimore Sun, that more than 80% of the dead were inner-city Blacks in their late teens to early twenties, and – based on DOJ Bureau of Statistics publications – a similar percentage of those convicted of murder were Blacks of a similar age group. I asked my friend, were the opportunity to arise at the vigil, if she would ask the Congresswoman to respond to the numbers. She is an activist for Pelosi. The invitation to the vigil has been the last I’ve heard from my friend.

    What I mean by all this are these several points.

    First, I hazard the guess that, say, 80% of those 23 hundred murders, the incident was a 1-on-1; and, further, that the median rounds fired were less than 3.

    Second, of further interest, the municipal government in each of those cities has been, as has been their respective state governments with little exception, dominantly Democrat for decades and generations.

    Third, the media and the politicians on all sides seem interested only in those murdered in the spectacular mass public killings – nearly all whites – and not those murdered one by one in everyday life – nearly all Blacks – in the impoverishment of decayed urban cores of Democrat cities.

    Go figure.

    As to my invented term of genetic political Progressive, I mean that there is in fact a genetic basis for some or much of one’s beliefs. Replicated studies of behavioral genetics – beginning with the watershed Minnesota University study of identical twins separated at birth and raised in distant adoptive families – find very strong behavioral likenesses between the twins – political beliefs, preferences in music, colors, and such else – and often incongruent with the families in which they were raised.

    I fear that what this means is that much of the influential anti-gun players are – not kidding – simply brain-wired that way.

    • Thanks for the comment.

      My newest interest is studying belief systems – how they are acquired, codified, propagated, etc. This spans religion, politics, and marketing fields.

      One mode of belief maintenance is that people believe what they want to believe. Since a gun can (and arguably should) be frightening, people who lack experience with guns codify their belief systems around a negative response the guns in general. This in turn leads to confirmation bias, etc.

      Add to this that many belief systems are acquired, typically from parents but also from friends, the surrounding community, church, etc. If one is raised in a center-left home in San Francisco, they are provided a set of beliefs from birth that will also be center-left (and if you are raised in a center-right home in Dallas ….).

      Where propagandists and marketing pros come into play is not by convincing someone to believe something, but to attach to a belief system and to amp-up the targets. Get enough people with a belief shared system to be vocal, and it looks like a movement (Hitler was good at that craft). The “genetic political Progressive” and a fair number of anti-gun people are a product of such environments, inculcated belief systems and a little propaganda.

      This is not to say they are dumb or evil. It takes a fair amount of courage and skull sweat to question your own beliefs, especially ones you were raised with.

  4. Banning “high capacity” magazines from the law abiding populace is ludicrous thereby allowing them to be vulnerable in protecting themselves. Secondly, not every shot will hit its target, in fact, the probability is that out of 10 shots, maybe half will miss; therefore, this ban reduces the chances of survival of a good man with a gun against a bad guy with s gun!

  5. One other thing that I think is extremely relevant to to studying this is the response time from when the first round is fire to the time that the attacker is engaged and neutralized. My theory is that we will find that the number of casualties is more directly correlated to the time it takes to engage and neutralize the attacker.

    • Interesting. I suspect the raw data could be gathered. If you are willing to take on that task and add a column to the Gun Facts Mass Public Shooting database, I’ll run the numbers.

  6. “There is no reliable and comprehensive database concerning the magazine capacity of guns used in crimes outside of mass public shootings”
    Well, I don’t know of one, but handguns are used in about 65% of crime and with the exception of a 32 round extended magazine available for a few makes of handguns, the highest standard capacity is 17+1 for some makes, but usually 12+1 or less for double stack mags and even fewer for single stack at 8+1 or less. It all depends on the caliber and whether the semi auto pistol is compact or full size. Revolvers are 6 to 9 maximum.
    https://www.dailypress.com/news/crime/dp-nws-assault-rifles-handgun-violence-20180312-story.html

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