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Are high-Capacity magazines the issue?
06/02/2022
After recent events, the House Judiciary Committee is planning to hold an emergency meeting to write a sizeable gun control package. Among other items in the bill, it plans to ban “high-capacity” magazines.
What does this mean for magazines? Are firearms with high-capacity magazines the problem? Let’s get into it.
What constitutes a magazine to be “high-capacity”?
A magazine that holds more than 10 rounds is commonly referred to as a “high-capacity” magazine. The most common magazine size is 30 rounds. The majority of full-size and compact handguns have 10-15 round magazine capacities. AR-15’s come standard with 30-round magazines. There are aftermarket magazines that you can purchase which hold 30 rounds for handguns and even 100 rounds in a drum magazine.
Do high-capacity magazines inflict more harm than lower capacity magazines?
It can be argued from both sides of the gun debate that they have a tremendous impact on gun deaths or that they have little to no impact on gun deaths. The only difference between a high and low-capacity magazine is just that. The number of rounds that can be fired from a single magazine before it empties. Do an extra 20 rounds make that much of a difference in gun violence? To answer that, we need to take a look at some statistics.
2020 Gun Death Statistics
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 45,222 people died from gun-related injuries in the United States in 2020 (the most recent year for the data). Now, this number includes murders, suicides, and other types of gun-related deaths like self-defense and accidental deaths.
So how do these figures add up? In 2020, a staggering 54% of all gun deaths were from suicide. That’s 24,292 of the 45,222 total deaths. Suicides have long been the leading cause of gun deaths in the U.S. This might be surprising to some people, since you never hear about it in the media. In fact, you only tend to hear about "mass shootings". While absolutely tragic and heartbreaking, mass shootings (definded as a shooting of more than four people), make up very small amount of gun deaths per year in the U.S. The majortiy of gun deaths, second to suicide is murder. The majority of the murder from guns invloves gang violence and inner city shootings. Interesting how you don't hear anything about those numbers.
You only hear how the U.S. has violent homicide issues that all stem from firearms and how we would be in such a better place without firearms. Hm, Let’s talk about that. We’ll come back to the statistics in a minute.
Are firearms the issue?
If you don’t know, Australia is one country with very strict gun laws and regulations. Civilians are not allowed to own semi-automatic rifles, handguns, automatic and semi-automatic firearms, self-loading and pump action shotguns, handguns with a caliber more than .38 inches with very few exemptions, semi-automatic handguns with a barrel length less than 120mm, and revolvers with a barrel length less than 100mm.
With that being said:
According to the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC), from 2019-2020 the homicide rate rose by 16%, the highest rate since 2012-2013. The AIC runs the National Homicide Monitoring Program, which is Australia’s only national collection of data on homicide incidents, victims, and offenders. The most common cause of deaths by homicide were stab wounds (37%). Blunt force contributed to 19% of deaths and gunshot wounds to 13%.
So, if you have strict gun policies and regulations why do you still have an uptick in homicides? I’ll give you a hint: it's not because of guns. Go figure. 🙄
Can a firearm be utilized in a homicide? Yes. Can a knife also be utilized in a homicide when a gun isn’t available? Yes. In fact, according to FBI 2019 statistics on homicide deaths by weapon, knives made up 1,476 of deaths while rifles made up 364 deaths. To add some perspective to how much rifles are used in homicides, personal weapons like hands and feet made up 600 deaths, nearly doubling the amount that rifles inflicted. By far, the most common cause of deaths was by handguns (6,368 deaths).
So, handguns, with an average magazine capacity of 10-rounds make up the most deaths by homicide in the U.S. and rifles are used less than knives and fists and feet? It doesn’t really sound like a magazine capacity issue to me.
What this means for high-capacity magazines
As of today, there are 10 states that prohibit high-capacity magazines. There are rumors that if the bill is passed, the goal is to remove high-capacity magazines from stores and make it hard if not impossible to acquire new ones. Current high-capacity magazines will be grandfathered in, but 10-round magazines will become the new standard. Right now, high-capacity magazines are legal in the states that don’t have current legislation against them. My advice is to keep buying your “regular-capacity” magazines and be a voice for our 2nd amendment rights.
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