Myth 4 – High Capacity Magazines are the Problem

First, I have a problem with the term “High Capacity Magazines”.  The standard capacity of most 9mm handguns, which are the most popular, is 14 to 17 rounds.  In the case of handgun like the Glock 17, you can buy 33 round magazines.  Since they exceed the standard capacity, I would consider them high capacity magazines.  However, somehow the media characterizes any magazine that holds more than 10 rounds as a high capacity magazine.  That means the standard capacity of the majority of semi-automatic handguns exceeds the definition.  It seems crazy to me.

Semantics aside, let’s look at limiting a magazine from 15 rounds to 10.  In the following YouTube video, “Christy” takes 22.90 seconds to fire 30 rounds from two 15 round magazines.  She takes only 25.51 to fire 30 rounds from three 10 round magazines.  That is a difference of 2.61 seconds.  So all the effort spent to try to ban High Capacity Magazines would amount to adding a couple of seconds on to one of these shootings?  And the guy in the same video is actually faster with three magazines because there is more variation in accurately firing than swapping magazines. (https://youtu.be/MCSySuemiHU)

And just in case you think they are highly trained and somehow super fast at swapping magazines, let me show you what fast really looks like: (https://youtu.be/CAFxgQmxbGI).

You can also tape or clip magazines to speed up reloads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDzSIbJUUUQ

I understand banning “High Capacity Magazines” sounds good on paper, but in practice it is a lot of effort for little return.