What logic is used when determining a "resonable" magazine limit?

[armueller2001]

I often hear talk of capacity limits of 10 or sometimes 15. Why do we choose these specific quantities - is there a scientific, statistical, or logical reason behind it? Or because it is a multiple of 5? Or because it is half or a third capacity of the ubiquitous 30 round magazines? Why not 11 rounds, or 17 rounds, or 14? How about a 1 round magazine?

If a magazine limit is to be discussed, it should be based upon statistical data and science instead of picking numbers willy-nilly. Factors such as typical accuracy percentage under stress and consideration for multiple assailants would be a good place to start. Is there any data to show that lethality of mass shootings drops in relation to magazine capacity? Or are we just doing something to "do something"?

It would be interesting to see a chart of magazine size vs. body count for mass shootings in the last 10 years.

[geckosfeet]

1. How about 7? Or 5? Lots of revolvers use 6.

Personally I think it's a feel good knee jerk have to do something because well we just do reaction. No real logic or sense behind it except eventually pushing us back to muzzle loaders and flintlocks for jq public and full auto for agency and military.

[premium]

2. I pick 15, because that's the standard mag for a handgun,

and upon further thought, for a semi auto rifle, I'd be ok with a 20 round limit, that was the standard mag I carried for my M-16 in Vietnam, just my opinion of course.

[krispos42]

3. We would first need to do an analysis

For legitimate self-defense shootings only...


When ammunition capacity was not the limiting factor in how many shots were fired defensively, what was the mean, median, and mode of shots fired in self-defense?


This means disregard all the incidents where the defender shot the gun empty, because obviously the capacity limit of the gun prevents us from finding how many rounds are really needed.

Once we have those numbers, we can do some kind of statistical analysis and come up with a science-based number.




If we wanted to do this.


Or we can just say "stop obsessing over hardware". That works, too.

[beevul]

4. None. Every proposal thus far has been completely arbitrary. N/T

[SoutherDem]

5. It is a feel-good, knee-jerk reaction

No science, statistics or logic at all just like many would say a Mossberg 715T should be banned and a Mossberg 702 is fine, but they are the same weapon, just the 715T is in a AR-15 style case.

[ileus]

6. It help us feel good about ourselves...It's a start

When 10 fails we move down to 5 when that fails we move to single shots...

Always remember the ultimate goal for most supporters of control.