Thursday, May 2, 2013

Why We Need High Capacity Magazines


The irony, which I'm sure is lost on the true believers, is that the pro-gun argument is usually that spree shooters who kill innocents can change magazines so fast that it won't help to limit their capacity. Now, all of a sudden, the poor homeowner is completely defeated by the limitation.

The real question is this: how often does the magazine capacity limitation interfere with a homeowner's ability to fight off attackers, and is that more often than the times high cap magazines enable people like Lanza and Loughner to kill more?

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment

30 comments:

  1. Mike,

    Your quick, simplified analysis here neglects several relevant differences between situations.

    * A spree shooter comes ready to kill lots of people, carrying lots of extra magazines that he has quick access to, whereas homeowners defending themselves and their families typically have just what is in the gun, as shown in this video. For reloading tho be possible for the homeowner plunged into a situation like this, they would have to be keeping the the gun and spare magazines on them at all times.

    * A person under attack, possibly dealing with returned fire from home invaders is not going to be as quick on the reload as a spree killer living out his fantasy and shooting at defenseless crowds.

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  2. Actually, this seems to point out the futility of using a firearm for self-defence.

    The home owner empties a magazine in one assailant who appears to keep coming due to the fact that he's high on drugs. In the midst of this--he's attacked by another assailant.

    If only the script had gun taken from homeowner and used against him.

    I know the shotgun gets a laugh from gun guys, but a Remington 870 leaves a rather large hole at close range--especially when loaded with 00 buckshot. That would compensate for the homeowner's piss poor aim.

    Especially if he's too fucking lazy to spend loads of time at a civvy version of the "killing house".

    Anyway, Tennessean is one of the true believers--so, we know he would be on top of the situation and not pop the wrong person and kill both crims with his wizzardly handgunning skills.

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    1. Laci, I really don't know where to start with you. If I dwell too much on your callous fantasizing about the homeowner being shot with his own gun, I'm liable to blow a vessel, so I'll skip the apoplexy and move on to your other comments.

      The guy who kept coming was not the one shown on drugs, and the drugs shown were pot--not something that tends to hop you up. What was being shown was the fact that guns are not magical death instruments, and some people can fight through the pain, sometimes even through a mortal wound.

      You make fun of the homeowner's aim, but even those with extra training often have poor aim under fire--see the Empire State Building incident. Training is needed to counteract this and protect bystanders, but having extra rounds is also a reasonable precaution.

      As for your comments insinuating that I have an elevated view of my skills, I practice to try to hone them as much as possible, but from this practice, I also know my limits. I'm quite clear that I'm not some superhuman wizard with a gun. I hope I'd survive this situation, but if I didn't, at least I'd go down fighting, which is better, in my mind, than going out on my knees, making futile pleas for my life to two brazen, unmasked bandits who likely don't want to leave witnesses.

      So, do you care to respond to my points above, or are you just stopping in to throw some insults before running off, not to be heard from again until you post another skreed that misinterprets hundreds of years of legal precedent?

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    2. Remind us why you carried a gun, Laci.

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    3. Laci, a few points.

      1. I know of no one who laughs at the idea of a shotgun for home defense. The fact that it's sometimes less than ideal does not make it laughable.
      2. Contrary to popular belief (which you apparently share) it is entirely possible to miss with a shotgun. The pattern from a 12 gauge shotgun (whether a Remington 870 or some other model) firing the 00 does not fill the air with a "wall of lead". A 2 3/4" shell contains 9 00 buckshot. As you did not here specify a 12 gauge, I'll point out that smaller gauges contain fewer shot. At typical home defense distances this results in a pretty tight pattern. A shotgun does not eliminate the need to practice.
      3. 00 buckshot is not always the best choice for a home defense shotgun as it can easily penetrate drywall in the event of a miss (see #2 above).
      4. Unless one has removed the magazine plug, the pump action shotgun is more limited in ammo than a pistol.
      5. The relatively long barrels make many shotguns more awkward to use than pistols or shorter barreled rifles.
      6. Recoil with a shotgun can be significant, leading to a greater likelihood of missing and a reluctance to practice. See #2 again.
      7. The time for follow-up shots (and those can be necessary, even for your talismanic 870) is often greater due to the time necessary to manually cycle the action.

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    4. According to his logic, he must have been suicidal and attempting to commit suicide by criminal. Apparently reality didn't match his deluded logic, nobody shot him with his gun, and he got over the depression...

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    5. Remind us why you carried a gun, Laci.

      That's awesome.

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    6. Laci labors under the impression that I can't remember anything he's talked about in the past.

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  3. Mikeb, you forget the difference between an attack and defense. An attacker has the advantage of choosing when to start the shooting. He can decide where to put himself during the attack. By contrast, someone defending himself or others has to respond to an attack. That response may require more rounds to be effective.

    Besides which, the government has no business telling good citizens how many rounds they're allowed to have in a magazine.

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    1. And you forget the difference between the homeowner who's sober and trained and the home invaders who are loaded on alcohol and drugs.

      What's your point, to change a magazine in a defensive situation takes longer than in in offensive one.

      As usual, you're being contentious just for the sake of argument.

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    2. MikeB: “What's your point, to change a magazine in a defensive situation takes longer than in in offensive one.”

      No Mike, but the definition of being in a defensive situation is that you are actively being attacked, so they time it takes to swap magazine is far more critical. The spree shooter is almost exclusively dealing with people who are running away, cowering, or franticly pushing buttons on their cell phone. Not only do they typically carry multiple magazines, but multiple weapons, and can pick the best time to refresh a magazine. I know you are about to point to Tucson, and in the process you are going to ignore that the situation was a jam and not a simple reload, but still what about all the spree shootings where there was never any resistance? By and large, that’s almost all of them.

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    3. I made that point and noted another difference above, Mike. Do you dispute me, or are you just being contentious with Greg just for the hell of it?

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    4. Sober vs. intoxicated? What's your point there?

      What I was saying is that an attacker many times has the luxury of deciding when magazine changes will be necessary, while defenders have to respond to the situation as it comes, often without enough information to know how many rounds will be enough.

      But as always, you regard facts and reasoning as contentious. Is that because you can't deal with them, or because you are unwilling to do so?

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    5. I don't see much difference in changing magazines in a defensive or an offensive situation.

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    6. Of course you don't, Mikeb, but since you've admitted in the past to being deliberately ignorant and resistant to facts, do you really imagine that your opinion will carry much weight?

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    7. Really? You don’t see a difference between having to reload when someone is trying to kill you (say shooting at you) vs. victims who are trying to get away? Not in the time it takes, but in the criticality of that time. This video portrayed both sides with a gun, and if one gun is empty and the other is not, yes, the two seconds it takes to reload could mean death. To the same end, if an active spree shooter has to deal with armed victims shooting back- yes those reloads will make a difference. Do you really want to go there?

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    8. TS, did you really say "the criticality of that time?" Brwahahahahahahahaha

      Up until you came up with that quite witty turn of phrase, we were talking about "the time" it takes.

      When arguing against the high cap magazine bans, you say one thing, but somehow it doesn't apply to the poor homeonwner in this overly-dramatic video.

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    9. Mikeb, are you just being contentious, or do you really not understand the difference between the tactical situations of an attacker and a defender?

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    10. Well that's your problem, you won't even listen to our arguments. You are making up what my position is and then arguing against that (I guess because it is easier that way). In both my posts I said the same thing. The time is more critical because you are under attack.

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  4. I have no numbers either way for your "real question". In fact, for a person forced to defend himself with a firearm your question is irrelevant. My understanding is that in recreational skydiving, the primary chute fails to open about 0.1% of the time. From this I could argue that a secondary parachute is almost always unnecessary, and it is...until the primary fails to open, at which time all the statistics in the world become meaningless to the affected skydiver. When defending myself and others with a firearm I have never thought I had too much ammo in a magazine or too many magazines.

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    1. But skydiving is dangerous and must be banned. Someone might land on a child.

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  5. Laci, I beleive this is around the fifth time I am asking you this question:

    Under your interpretation of the Second Amendment, please explain why the Miller decision examined the gun Miller possessed and determined that a sawed-off shotgun is not suitable for militia purposes, instead of examining the man (Miller) and determining that he has no right to keep and bear any arms because he was not actively involved in a militia. Why would the gun matter under your interpretation? It shouldn’t matter if it was a sawed-off shotgun, a full length shotgun, a machine gun suitable for militia purposes, or a musket suitable for militia purposes in the 18th century- Miller had no right to keep and bear any arms because he was a part of the “people” and not part of the “militia”. That is what you say, but it is not consistent with the Miller decision. So what would the decision have been if the gun Miller possessed had been determined by the courts to be suitable for militia purposes? The decision infers that it would be protected for individuals to keep and bear, yes?

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  6. During the Newtown massacre, the shooter had to reload. While the shooter was reloading, eleven children ran out of the room, they survived. The rest of the people in that room were killed. Reason enough for low capacity magazines. Unless of course, you could care less about the lives of those 11 children and the rest of our children.

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    1. Since we're discussing hypotheticals here, what if the principal had run out of her staff meeting with a gun to confront the shooter, instead of just her body?

      Following your style, Anonymous, I'll claim that you don't care about the lives of those children unless you support arming school employees.

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    2. Do you have some proof of this? Kids escaped, but that doesn’t mean they escaped during a reload. They can escape while he is shooting other people. The problem is the shooter was never empty. He did tactical reloads on the AR half the time, AND he had two side arms on him that were never empty. I think you have a wishful fantasy going on.

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    3. Do you have proof of the kind of reloads Lanza did? Aren't you just repeating what others have guessed at, and then you turn around and ask us for proof.

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    4. Yes, the police report said there were rounds left in about half the discarded magazines.

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  7. The facts I stated were not hypothetical, they really happened. Continue on with your delusional thinking. There were ARMED guards at Virgina Tech, they did not stop the killings.

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    1. Then if guns are effectively useless, why do you want to ban them?

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  8. "Actually, this seems to point out the futility of using a firearm for self-defence.
    The home owner empties a magazine in one assailant who appears to keep coming due to the fact that he's high on drugs. In the midst of this--he's attacked by another assailant."
    Laci seems to start out by suggesting even trying to protect your family from criminals is pointless and then goes into what is becoming the standard liberal sales speech about the advantages of a shotgun over every other firearm.
    The PSA was quite clear in its suggestion that if only he had had a few more rounds in the mag....

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