How Did 15-18 Year Old Kids Organize A Nationwide Movement In Less Than A Week?

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

All the concessions, the medical teams on stand-by, the permits...in less than a week.

They are liberals. They don't have to do any of that legal stuff!

 

[Rambunctious]

NRA buddies: this movement is going to stomp your faces. Figuratively, of course. Unless you get violent. You really, really don't want to do that.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Twitter, Facebook and social groups.

You DO realize that high school kids are pretty tech and internet savvy, right?

Uh-huh...I'm sure thats it. The same people that can't agree on virtually anything else in their lives, amongst each other... Magically came to virtual unanimous agreement on this issue, through "social media", in less than a week. And just by pure coincidence arrived at the same "talking points Democrats are pushing for...?
You interested in buying a bridge?

Social Media is what will make the whole event hilarious.

They are probably going to have to call in extra cops to keep the little ones from walking into lamp posts or tripping over each other ...
While they have their noses glued to their cell phones.

I mean face it ... Look at the stupid kids during the Florida shooting videoing the event ...
Instead of thinking of something a little more proactive to do in order to defend themselves or plan a better response.

.

I hope they have plenty of Tide pods available for snacks!

 

[JakeStarkey]

NRA buddies and Alt Right podjos: this movement is going to stomp your faces. Figuratively, of course. Unless you get violent. You really, really don't want to do that.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Ever stop to consider that the reason they videoed it was because they might have been looking to get his image on their phones so he could be identified?

By the way, the shooter managed to escape the school with the other students and was picked up a while later while he was SHOPPING.

Taking video to get a picture of the shooter sounds appropriate to me, especially if you don't have a gun.

Uh ... I pretty sure that the audio consists of ... 'Oh fuck some is shooting".
The shooter was never seen on the video ... And it would have been far more productive to be preparing for something else.

Not to mention there has never been one of these mass shootings where the perpetrator wasn't known.
In fact ... The people, teachers, students, cops and federal agents all knew who Nikolas Cruz was and what he capable of prior to the incident ... Dumbass ...

.

What "preparations" should those students have done? They were already in lockdown and trying to hide behind stuff.

Were the doors barricaded?

Were they out of the shooter's line of sight?

I didn't see any of that. In fact, I saw the opposite!

 

[JakeStarkey]

Only a man with a moral hole in his head would victimize the victims.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

No...we can protect them.....democrats simply refuse to protect them....they need dead children to push for gun control.

And there's the rub. We live in a democracy and both sides are dug in. In the meantime...........the kids have had enough.

You may end up wishing you had compromised.

We did compromise....over and over, and people like you kept coming back each time saying, "you have to compromise more...." We are still waiting for concealed carry reciprocity and gun mufflers to be accessible to shooters.....you don't wan't compromise, you want baby step confiscation....

People like me? How often have we conversed on the gun debate?

People who use the word "compromise" when they know it means surrendering gun Rights in baby steps....a new one each time with the goal of ending the 2nd Amendment.

Whatever dude. They are going to Washington and they are going to make a lot of noise.

Aren't they missing enough school already?

 

[Montrovant]

Do you think restricting weapons that are semi-auto would pass SCOTUS review? Semi-auto is very much common use; I would guess that half or more of the guns in the US are semi-auto. According to this, about 40% of pistols and rifles in the US were semi-auto in 1997: https://engagedscholarship.csuohio....ttpsredir=1&article=1679&context=urban_facpub

I think it is unlikely that the Supreme Court would accept much restriction on semi-automatic firearms as a whole.

At one point most of the patent medicines contained opium. At one point most of the insecticides sprayed on crops contained DDT.

Justice Scalia in his opinion on the Heller case cited no rights are absolute.

Not confiscation but banning the further sale, import, manufacture and distribution of semi-automatic firing systems and high capacity magazines. No one's right to self defense would be infringed.

Are opium or DDT Constitutionally protected rights? There is a higher bar involved here.

No, no rights are absolute. However, that does not mean that rights can be changed on a whim, ignoring all previous rulings or precedent.

Semi-automatic is a very low bar to try to set. I don't think it would work without a new amendment.

I contend that the semi-automatic firing system fed by a high capacity magazine is not a constitutionally protected right. And citing that position is not taken on a whim. It is cited on the bullet riddled corpses of innocent Americans. If other weapons can be banned due to their unnecessary lethality, assault weapons can be too.

Is your definition of assault weapons semi-automatic weapons? That's......ridiculous, really. There are all sorts of semi-automatic weapons. Also, assault weapons is often a pretty vague term.

Magazine capacity is a somewhat different issue.

Let us then define "assault weapon".

My definition would include, but not be limited by these attributes; a weapon using a semi or fully automatic firing system and can be fed by a magazine containing ten or more rounds. A weapon whose rounds are fired in a tumbling trajectory rather than a smooth spiral trajectory.

It's the rate of fire that puts the 'mass' in 'mass shooting'. Revolvers containing six or fewer rounds, bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns containing eight or fewer rounds would be acceptable as these weapons are designed for self defense or sport.

My great fear is that the debate will be bogged down by cosmetics as the previous assault weapon ban debate was. Grips, stocks, flash suppressors have nothing to do with the essential problem of rate of fire.

I think that you would be including half or more of the firearms in the US, including rifles and pistols. I question whether a law banning all such weapons would pass USSC review.

Limiting magazine capacity, on the other hand, seems more likely to be considered acceptable.

 

[2aguy]

At one point most of the patent medicines contained opium. At one point most of the insecticides sprayed on crops contained DDT.

Justice Scalia in his opinion on the Heller case cited no rights are absolute.

Not confiscation but banning the further sale, import, manufacture and distribution of semi-automatic firing systems and high capacity magazines. No one's right to self defense would be infringed.

Are opium or DDT Constitutionally protected rights? There is a higher bar involved here.

No, no rights are absolute. However, that does not mean that rights can be changed on a whim, ignoring all previous rulings or precedent.

Semi-automatic is a very low bar to try to set. I don't think it would work without a new amendment.

I contend that the semi-automatic firing system fed by a high capacity magazine is not a constitutionally protected right. And citing that position is not taken on a whim. It is cited on the bullet riddled corpses of innocent Americans. If other weapons can be banned due to their unnecessary lethality, assault weapons can be too.

Is your definition of assault weapons semi-automatic weapons? That's......ridiculous, really. There are all sorts of semi-automatic weapons. Also, assault weapons is often a pretty vague term.

Magazine capacity is a somewhat different issue.

Let us then define "assault weapon".

My definition would include, but not be limited by these attributes; a weapon using a semi or fully automatic firing system and can be fed by a magazine containing ten or more rounds. A weapon whose rounds are fired in a tumbling trajectory rather than a smooth spiral trajectory.

It's the rate of fire that puts the 'mass' in 'mass shooting'. Revolvers containing six or fewer rounds, bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns containing eight or fewer rounds would be acceptable as these weapons are designed for self defense or sport.

My great fear is that the debate will be bogged down by cosmetics as the previous assault weapon ban debate was. Grips, stocks, flash suppressors have nothing to do with the essential problem of rate of fire.

I think that you would be including half or more of the firearms in the US, including rifles and pistols. I question whether a law banning all such weapons would pass USSC review.

Limiting magazine capacity, on the other hand, seems more likely to be considered acceptable.

A magazine limit is stupid.....really ,really stupid. It is a back door ban on semi auto pistols, since many of them are manufactured for 15-19 round magazines.....ban those, and the pistols are useless....since gun makers won't reconfigure their process for guns that hold those magazines.....that is the only reason for the magazine ban.....

Here...try some actual research into magazines....

Large-Capacity Magazines and the Casualty Counts in Mass Shootings: The Plausibility of Linkages by Gary Kleck :: SSRN

Do bans on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) for semiautomatic firearms have significant potential for reducing the number of deaths and injuries in mass shootings?
The most common rationale for an effect of LCM use is that they allow mass killers to fire many rounds without reloading.
LCMs are used is less than 1/3 of 1% of mass shootings.
News accounts of 23 shootings in which more than six people were killed or wounded and LCMs were used, occurring in the U.S. in 1994-2013, were examined.
There was only one incident in which the shooter may have been stopped by bystander intervention when he tried to reload.
In all of these 23 incidents the shooter possessed either multiple guns or multiple magazines, meaning that the shooter, even if denied LCMs, could have continued firing without significant interruption by either switching loaded guns or by changing smaller loaded magazines with only a 2-4 second delay for each magazine change.
Finally, the data indicate that mass shooters maintain slow enough rates of fire such that the time needed to reload would not increase the time between shots and thus the time available for prospective victims to escape.

--------

We did not employ the oft-used definition of “mass murder” as a homicide in which four or more victims were killed, because most of these involve just four to six victims (Duwe 2007), which could therefore have involved as few as six rounds fired, a number that shooters using even ordinary revolvers are capable of firing without reloading.

LCMs obviously cannot help shooters who fire no more rounds than could be fired without LCMs, so the inclusion of “nonaffectable” cases with only four to six victims would dilute the sample, reducing the percent of sample incidents in which an LCM might have affected the number of casualties.

Further, had we studied only homicides with four or more dead victims, drawn from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports, we would have missed cases in which huge numbers of people were shot, and huge numbers of rounds were fired, but three or fewer of the victims died.


For example, in one widely publicized shooting carried out in Los Angeles on February 28, 1997, two bank robbers shot a total of 18 people - surely a mass shooting by any reasonable standard (Table 1).

Yet, because none of the people they shot died, this incident would not qualify as a mass murder (or even murder of any kind).

Exclusion of such incidents would bias the sample against the proposition that LCM use increases the number of victims by excluding incidents with large numbers of victims. We also excluded shootings in which more than six persons were shot over the entire course of the incident but shootings occurred in multiple locations with no more than six people shot in any one of the locations, and substantial periods of time intervened between episodes of shooting. An example is the series of killings committed by Rodrick Dantzler on July 7, 2011.

Once eligible incidents were identified, we searched through news accounts for details related to whether the use of LCMs could have influenced the casualty counts.

Specifically, we searched for

(1) the number of magazines in the shooter’s immediate possession,

(2) the capacity of the largest magazine,

(3) the number of guns in the shooter’s immediate possession during the incident,

(4) the types of guns possessed,

(5) whether the shooter reloaded during the incident,

(6) the number of rounds fired,

(7) the duration of the shooting from the first shot fired to the last, and (8) whether anyone intervened to stop the shooter.

Findings How Many Mass Shootings were Committed Using LCMs?

We identified 23 total incidents in which more than six people were shot at a single time and place in the U.S. from 1994 through 2013 and that were known to involve use of any magazines with capacities over ten rounds.


Table 1 summarizes key details of the LCMinvolved mass shootings relevant to the issues addressed in this paper.

(Table 1 about here) What fraction of all mass shootings involve LCMs?

There is no comprehensive listing of all mass shootings available for the entire 1994-2013 period, but the most extensive one currently available is at the Shootingtracker.com website, which only began its coverage in 2013.

-----

How Often Have Bystanders Intervened While a Mass Shooter Was Trying to Reload?

First, we consider the issue of how many times people have disrupted a mass shooting while the shooter was trying to load a detachable magazine into a semiautomatic gun.

Note that 16 it is irrelevant whether interveners have stopped a shooter while trying to reload some other type of gun, using other kinds of magazines, since we are addressing the potential significance of restrictions on the capacity of detachable magazines which are used only with semiautomatic firearms.

Thus, bystander intervention directed at shooters using other types of guns that take much longer to reload than a semiautomatic gun using detachable magazines could not provide any guidance as to the likelihood of bystander intervention when the shooter was using a semiautomatic gun equipped with detachable magazines that can be reloaded very quickly.

Prospective interveners would presumably be more likely to tackle a shooter who took a long time to reload than one who took only 2-4 seconds to do so.

Likewise, bystander interventions that occurred at a time when the shooter was not reloading (e.g., when he was struggling with a defective gun or magazine) are irrelevant, since that kind of intervention could occur regardless of what kinds of magazines or firearms the shooter was using.


It is the need to reload detachable magazines sooner and more often that differentiates shooters using smaller detachable magazines from those using larger ones.

For the period 1994-2013 inclusive, we identified three mass shooting incidents in which it was claimed that interveners disrupted the shooting by tackling the shooter while he was trying to reload.

In only one of the three cases, however, did interveners actually tackle the shooter while he may have been reloading a semiautomatic firearm.

In one of the incidents, the weapon in question was a shotgun that had to be reloaded by inserting one shotshell at a time into the weapon (Knoxville News Sentinel “Takedown of Alleged Shooter Recounted” July 29, 2008, regarding a shooting in Knoxville, TN on July 27, 2008), and so the incident is irrelevant to the effects of detachable LCMs.


In another incident, occurring in Springfield, Oregon on May 21, 1998, the shooter, Kip Kinkel, was using a semiautomatic gun, and he was tackled by bystanders, but not while he was reloading.

After exhausting the ammunition in one gun, the shooter started 17 firing another loaded gun, one of three firearms he had with him.

The first intervener was shot in the hand in the course of wresting this still-loaded gun away from the shooter (The (Portland) Oregonian, May 23, 1998).


The final case occurred in Tucson, AZ on January 8, 2011.

This is the shooting in which Jared Loughner attempted to assassinate Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

The shooter was using a semiautomatic firearm and was tackled by bystanders, purportedly while trying to reload a detachable magazine.

Even in this case, however, there were important uncertainties.

According to one news account, one bystander “grabbed a full magazine” that the shooter dropped, and two others helped subdue him (Associated Press, January 9, 2011).

It is not, however, clear whether this bystander intervention was facilitated because

(1) the shooter was reloading, or because

(2) the shooter stopping firing when his gun or magazine failed to function properly.

Eyewitness testimony, including that of the interveners, was inconsistent as to exactly why or how the intervention transpired in Giffords shooting.

One intervener insisted that he was sure the shooter had exhausted the ammunition in the first magazine (and thus was about to reload) because he saw the gun’s slide locked back – a condition he believed could only occur with this particular firearm after the last round is fired.

In fact, this can also happen when the guns jams, i.e. fails to chamber the next round (Salzgeber 2014; Morrill 2014).

Complicating matters further, the New York Times reported that the spring on the second magazine was broken, presumably rendering it incapable of functioning.

Their story’s headline and text characterized this mechanical failure as “perhaps the only fortunate event of the day” (New York Times “A Single, Terrifying Moment: Shots, Scuffle, Some Luck,” January 10, 2011, p. A1)

. If the New York Times account was accurate, the shooter would not have been able to continue shooting with that magazine even if no one had stopped him from loading it into his gun.

Detachable magazines of any size can malfunction, which would at least temporarily stop a prospective mass shooter from firing, and thereby provide an opportunity for bystanders to stop the shooter.
It is possible that the bystander intervention in the Tucson case could have occurred regardless of what size magazines the shooter possessed, since a shooter struggling with a defective small-capacity magazine would be just as vulnerable to disruption as one struggling with a defective large-capacity magazine. Thus, it remains unclear whether the shooter was reloading when the bystanders tackled him.
-----
The offenders in LCM-involved mass shootings were also known to have reloaded during 14 of the 23 (61%) incidents with magazine holding over 10 rounds.

The shooters were known to have not reloaded in another two of these 20 incidents and it could not be determined if they reloaded in the remaining seven incidents.

Thus, even if the shooters had been denied LCMs, we know that most of them definitely would have been able to reload smaller detachable magazines without interference from bystanders since they in fact did change magazines.

The fact that this percentage is less than 100% should not, however, be interpreted to mean that the shooters were unable to reload in the other nine incidents.

It is possible that the shooters could also have reloaded in many of these nine shootings, but chose not to do so, or did not need to do so in order to fire all the rounds they wanted to fire. This is consistent with the fact that there has been at most only one mass shootings in twenty years in which reloading a semiautomatic firearm might have been blocked by bystanders intervening and thereby stopping the shooter from doing all the shooting he wanted to do. All we know is that in two incidents the shooter did not reload, and news accounts of seven other incidents did not mention whether the offender reloaded.

----

For example, a story in the Hartford Courant about the Sandy Hook elementary school killings in 2012 was headlined “Shooter Paused, and Six Escaped,” the text asserting that as many as six children may have survived because the shooter paused to reload (December 23, 2012). ''

The author of the story, however, went on to concede that this was just a speculation by an unnamed source, and that it was also possible that some children simply escaped when the killer was shooting other children.

There was no reliable evidence that the pauses were due to the shooter reloading, rather than his guns jamming or the shooter simply choosing to pause his shooting while his gun was still loaded.

The plausibility of the “victims escape” rationale depends on the average rates of fire that shooters in mass shootings typically maintain.

If they fire very fast, the 2-4 seconds it takes to change box-type detachable magazines could produce a slowing of the rate of fire that the shooters otherwise would have maintained without the magazine changes, increasing the average time between rounds fired and potentially allowing more victims to escape during the betweenshot intervals.

On the other hand, if mass shooters fire their guns with the average interval between shots lasting more than 2-4 seconds, the pauses due to additional magazine changes would be no longer than the pauses the shooter typically took between shots even when not reloading.

In that case, there would be no more opportunity for potential victims to escape than there would have been without the additional magazine changes

-----

In sum, in nearly all LCM-involved mass shootings, the time it takes to reload a detachable magazine is no greater than the average time between shots that the shooter takes anyway when not reloading.

Consequently, there is no affirmative evidence that reloading detachable magazines slows mass shooters’ rates of fire, and thus no affirmative evidence that the number of victims who could escape the killers due to additional pauses in the shooting is increased by the shooter’s need to change magazines.

 

[Montrovant]

Are opium or DDT Constitutionally protected rights? There is a higher bar involved here.

No, no rights are absolute. However, that does not mean that rights can be changed on a whim, ignoring all previous rulings or precedent.

Semi-automatic is a very low bar to try to set. I don't think it would work without a new amendment.

I contend that the semi-automatic firing system fed by a high capacity magazine is not a constitutionally protected right. And citing that position is not taken on a whim. It is cited on the bullet riddled corpses of innocent Americans. If other weapons can be banned due to their unnecessary lethality, assault weapons can be too.

Is your definition of assault weapons semi-automatic weapons? That's......ridiculous, really. There are all sorts of semi-automatic weapons. Also, assault weapons is often a pretty vague term.

Magazine capacity is a somewhat different issue.

Let us then define "assault weapon".

My definition would include, but not be limited by these attributes; a weapon using a semi or fully automatic firing system and can be fed by a magazine containing ten or more rounds. A weapon whose rounds are fired in a tumbling trajectory rather than a smooth spiral trajectory.

It's the rate of fire that puts the 'mass' in 'mass shooting'. Revolvers containing six or fewer rounds, bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns containing eight or fewer rounds would be acceptable as these weapons are designed for self defense or sport.

My great fear is that the debate will be bogged down by cosmetics as the previous assault weapon ban debate was. Grips, stocks, flash suppressors have nothing to do with the essential problem of rate of fire.

I think that you would be including half or more of the firearms in the US, including rifles and pistols. I question whether a law banning all such weapons would pass USSC review.

Limiting magazine capacity, on the other hand, seems more likely to be considered acceptable.

A magazine limit is stupid.....really ,really stupid. It is a back door ban on semi auto pistols, since many of them are manufactured for 15-19 round magazines.....ban those, and the pistols are useless....since gun makers won't reconfigure their process for guns that hold those magazines.....that is the only reason for the magazine ban.....

Here...try some actual research into magazines....

Large-Capacity Magazines and the Casualty Counts in Mass Shootings: The Plausibility of Linkages by Gary Kleck :: SSRN

Do bans on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) for semiautomatic firearms have significant potential for reducing the number of deaths and injuries in mass shootings?
The most common rationale for an effect of LCM use is that they allow mass killers to fire many rounds without reloading.
LCMs are used is less than 1/3 of 1% of mass shootings.
News accounts of 23 shootings in which more than six people were killed or wounded and LCMs were used, occurring in the U.S. in 1994-2013, were examined.
There was only one incident in which the shooter may have been stopped by bystander intervention when he tried to reload.
In all of these 23 incidents the shooter possessed either multiple guns or multiple magazines, meaning that the shooter, even if denied LCMs, could have continued firing without significant interruption by either switching loaded guns or by changing smaller loaded magazines with only a 2-4 second delay for each magazine change.
Finally, the data indicate that mass shooters maintain slow enough rates of fire such that the time needed to reload would not increase the time between shots and thus the time available for prospective victims to escape.

--------

We did not employ the oft-used definition of “mass murder” as a homicide in which four or more victims were killed, because most of these involve just four to six victims (Duwe 2007), which could therefore have involved as few as six rounds fired, a number that shooters using even ordinary revolvers are capable of firing without reloading.

LCMs obviously cannot help shooters who fire no more rounds than could be fired without LCMs, so the inclusion of “nonaffectable” cases with only four to six victims would dilute the sample, reducing the percent of sample incidents in which an LCM might have affected the number of casualties.

Further, had we studied only homicides with four or more dead victims, drawn from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports, we would have missed cases in which huge numbers of people were shot, and huge numbers of rounds were fired, but three or fewer of the victims died.


For example, in one widely publicized shooting carried out in Los Angeles on February 28, 1997, two bank robbers shot a total of 18 people - surely a mass shooting by any reasonable standard (Table 1).

Yet, because none of the people they shot died, this incident would not qualify as a mass murder (or even murder of any kind).

Exclusion of such incidents would bias the sample against the proposition that LCM use increases the number of victims by excluding incidents with large numbers of victims. We also excluded shootings in which more than six persons were shot over the entire course of the incident but shootings occurred in multiple locations with no more than six people shot in any one of the locations, and substantial periods of time intervened between episodes of shooting. An example is the series of killings committed by Rodrick Dantzler on July 7, 2011.

Once eligible incidents were identified, we searched through news accounts for details related to whether the use of LCMs could have influenced the casualty counts.

Specifically, we searched for

(1) the number of magazines in the shooter’s immediate possession,

(2) the capacity of the largest magazine,

(3) the number of guns in the shooter’s immediate possession during the incident,

(4) the types of guns possessed,

(5) whether the shooter reloaded during the incident,

(6) the number of rounds fired,

(7) the duration of the shooting from the first shot fired to the last, and (8) whether anyone intervened to stop the shooter.

Findings How Many Mass Shootings were Committed Using LCMs?

We identified 23 total incidents in which more than six people were shot at a single time and place in the U.S. from 1994 through 2013 and that were known to involve use of any magazines with capacities over ten rounds.


Table 1 summarizes key details of the LCMinvolved mass shootings relevant to the issues addressed in this paper.

(Table 1 about here) What fraction of all mass shootings involve LCMs?

There is no comprehensive listing of all mass shootings available for the entire 1994-2013 period, but the most extensive one currently available is at the Shootingtracker.com website, which only began its coverage in 2013.

-----

How Often Have Bystanders Intervened While a Mass Shooter Was Trying to Reload?

First, we consider the issue of how many times people have disrupted a mass shooting while the shooter was trying to load a detachable magazine into a semiautomatic gun.

Note that 16 it is irrelevant whether interveners have stopped a shooter while trying to reload some other type of gun, using other kinds of magazines, since we are addressing the potential significance of restrictions on the capacity of detachable magazines which are used only with semiautomatic firearms.

Thus, bystander intervention directed at shooters using other types of guns that take much longer to reload than a semiautomatic gun using detachable magazines could not provide any guidance as to the likelihood of bystander intervention when the shooter was using a semiautomatic gun equipped with detachable magazines that can be reloaded very quickly.

Prospective interveners would presumably be more likely to tackle a shooter who took a long time to reload than one who took only 2-4 seconds to do so.

Likewise, bystander interventions that occurred at a time when the shooter was not reloading (e.g., when he was struggling with a defective gun or magazine) are irrelevant, since that kind of intervention could occur regardless of what kinds of magazines or firearms the shooter was using.


It is the need to reload detachable magazines sooner and more often that differentiates shooters using smaller detachable magazines from those using larger ones.

For the period 1994-2013 inclusive, we identified three mass shooting incidents in which it was claimed that interveners disrupted the shooting by tackling the shooter while he was trying to reload.

In only one of the three cases, however, did interveners actually tackle the shooter while he may have been reloading a semiautomatic firearm.

In one of the incidents, the weapon in question was a shotgun that had to be reloaded by inserting one shotshell at a time into the weapon (Knoxville News Sentinel “Takedown of Alleged Shooter Recounted” July 29, 2008, regarding a shooting in Knoxville, TN on July 27, 2008), and so the incident is irrelevant to the effects of detachable LCMs.


In another incident, occurring in Springfield, Oregon on May 21, 1998, the shooter, Kip Kinkel, was using a semiautomatic gun, and he was tackled by bystanders, but not while he was reloading.

After exhausting the ammunition in one gun, the shooter started 17 firing another loaded gun, one of three firearms he had with him.

The first intervener was shot in the hand in the course of wresting this still-loaded gun away from the shooter (The (Portland) Oregonian, May 23, 1998).


The final case occurred in Tucson, AZ on January 8, 2011.

This is the shooting in which Jared Loughner attempted to assassinate Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

The shooter was using a semiautomatic firearm and was tackled by bystanders, purportedly while trying to reload a detachable magazine.

Even in this case, however, there were important uncertainties.

According to one news account, one bystander “grabbed a full magazine” that the shooter dropped, and two others helped subdue him (Associated Press, January 9, 2011).

It is not, however, clear whether this bystander intervention was facilitated because

(1) the shooter was reloading, or because

(2) the shooter stopping firing when his gun or magazine failed to function properly.

Eyewitness testimony, including that of the interveners, was inconsistent as to exactly why or how the intervention transpired in Giffords shooting.

One intervener insisted that he was sure the shooter had exhausted the ammunition in the first magazine (and thus was about to reload) because he saw the gun’s slide locked back – a condition he believed could only occur with this particular firearm after the last round is fired.

In fact, this can also happen when the guns jams, i.e. fails to chamber the next round (Salzgeber 2014; Morrill 2014).

Complicating matters further, the New York Times reported that the spring on the second magazine was broken, presumably rendering it incapable of functioning.

Their story’s headline and text characterized this mechanical failure as “perhaps the only fortunate event of the day” (New York Times “A Single, Terrifying Moment: Shots, Scuffle, Some Luck,” January 10, 2011, p. A1)

. If the New York Times account was accurate, the shooter would not have been able to continue shooting with that magazine even if no one had stopped him from loading it into his gun.

Detachable magazines of any size can malfunction, which would at least temporarily stop a prospective mass shooter from firing, and thereby provide an opportunity for bystanders to stop the shooter.
It is possible that the bystander intervention in the Tucson case could have occurred regardless of what size magazines the shooter possessed, since a shooter struggling with a defective small-capacity magazine would be just as vulnerable to disruption as one struggling with a defective large-capacity magazine. Thus, it remains unclear whether the shooter was reloading when the bystanders tackled him.
-----
The offenders in LCM-involved mass shootings were also known to have reloaded during 14 of the 23 (61%) incidents with magazine holding over 10 rounds.

The shooters were known to have not reloaded in another two of these 20 incidents and it could not be determined if they reloaded in the remaining seven incidents.

Thus, even if the shooters had been denied LCMs, we know that most of them definitely would have been able to reload smaller detachable magazines without interference from bystanders since they in fact did change magazines.

The fact that this percentage is less than 100% should not, however, be interpreted to mean that the shooters were unable to reload in the other nine incidents.

It is possible that the shooters could also have reloaded in many of these nine shootings, but chose not to do so, or did not need to do so in order to fire all the rounds they wanted to fire. This is consistent with the fact that there has been at most only one mass shootings in twenty years in which reloading a semiautomatic firearm might have been blocked by bystanders intervening and thereby stopping the shooter from doing all the shooting he wanted to do. All we know is that in two incidents the shooter did not reload, and news accounts of seven other incidents did not mention whether the offender reloaded.

----

For example, a story in the Hartford Courant about the Sandy Hook elementary school killings in 2012 was headlined “Shooter Paused, and Six Escaped,” the text asserting that as many as six children may have survived because the shooter paused to reload (December 23, 2012). ''

The author of the story, however, went on to concede that this was just a speculation by an unnamed source, and that it was also possible that some children simply escaped when the killer was shooting other children.

There was no reliable evidence that the pauses were due to the shooter reloading, rather than his guns jamming or the shooter simply choosing to pause his shooting while his gun was still loaded.

The plausibility of the “victims escape” rationale depends on the average rates of fire that shooters in mass shootings typically maintain.

If they fire very fast, the 2-4 seconds it takes to change box-type detachable magazines could produce a slowing of the rate of fire that the shooters otherwise would have maintained without the magazine changes, increasing the average time between rounds fired and potentially allowing more victims to escape during the betweenshot intervals.

On the other hand, if mass shooters fire their guns with the average interval between shots lasting more than 2-4 seconds, the pauses due to additional magazine changes would be no longer than the pauses the shooter typically took between shots even when not reloading.

In that case, there would be no more opportunity for potential victims to escape than there would have been without the additional magazine changes

-----

In sum, in nearly all LCM-involved mass shootings, the time it takes to reload a detachable magazine is no greater than the average time between shots that the shooter takes anyway when not reloading.

Consequently, there is no affirmative evidence that reloading detachable magazines slows mass shooters’ rates of fire, and thus no affirmative evidence that the number of victims who could escape the killers due to additional pauses in the shooting is increased by the shooter’s need to change magazines.

tl:dr

My point was that limiting the size of magazines seems more likely to pass scrutiny than trying to ban all semi-auto weapons. Neither might succeed, but I think limiting magazine capacity has a better chance.

 

[Nosmo King]

Are opium or DDT Constitutionally protected rights? There is a higher bar involved here.

No, no rights are absolute. However, that does not mean that rights can be changed on a whim, ignoring all previous rulings or precedent.

Semi-automatic is a very low bar to try to set. I don't think it would work without a new amendment.

I contend that the semi-automatic firing system fed by a high capacity magazine is not a constitutionally protected right. And citing that position is not taken on a whim. It is cited on the bullet riddled corpses of innocent Americans. If other weapons can be banned due to their unnecessary lethality, assault weapons can be too.

Is your definition of assault weapons semi-automatic weapons? That's......ridiculous, really. There are all sorts of semi-automatic weapons. Also, assault weapons is often a pretty vague term.

Magazine capacity is a somewhat different issue.

Let us then define "assault weapon".

My definition would include, but not be limited by these attributes; a weapon using a semi or fully automatic firing system and can be fed by a magazine containing ten or more rounds. A weapon whose rounds are fired in a tumbling trajectory rather than a smooth spiral trajectory.

It's the rate of fire that puts the 'mass' in 'mass shooting'. Revolvers containing six or fewer rounds, bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns containing eight or fewer rounds would be acceptable as these weapons are designed for self defense or sport.

My great fear is that the debate will be bogged down by cosmetics as the previous assault weapon ban debate was. Grips, stocks, flash suppressors have nothing to do with the essential problem of rate of fire.

I think that you would be including half or more of the firearms in the US, including rifles and pistols. I question whether a law banning all such weapons would pass USSC review.

Limiting magazine capacity, on the other hand, seems more likely to be considered acceptable.

A magazine limit is stupid.....really ,really stupid. It is a back door ban on semi auto pistols, since many of them are manufactured for 15-19 round magazines.....ban those, and the pistols are useless....since gun makers won't reconfigure their process for guns that hold those magazines.....that is the only reason for the magazine ban.....

Here...try some actual research into magazines....

Large-Capacity Magazines and the Casualty Counts in Mass Shootings: The Plausibility of Linkages by Gary Kleck :: SSRN

Do bans on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) for semiautomatic firearms have significant potential for reducing the number of deaths and injuries in mass shootings?
The most common rationale for an effect of LCM use is that they allow mass killers to fire many rounds without reloading.
LCMs are used is less than 1/3 of 1% of mass shootings.
News accounts of 23 shootings in which more than six people were killed or wounded and LCMs were used, occurring in the U.S. in 1994-2013, were examined.
There was only one incident in which the shooter may have been stopped by bystander intervention when he tried to reload.
In all of these 23 incidents the shooter possessed either multiple guns or multiple magazines, meaning that the shooter, even if denied LCMs, could have continued firing without significant interruption by either switching loaded guns or by changing smaller loaded magazines with only a 2-4 second delay for each magazine change.
Finally, the data indicate that mass shooters maintain slow enough rates of fire such that the time needed to reload would not increase the time between shots and thus the time available for prospective victims to escape.

--------

We did not employ the oft-used definition of “mass murder” as a homicide in which four or more victims were killed, because most of these involve just four to six victims (Duwe 2007), which could therefore have involved as few as six rounds fired, a number that shooters using even ordinary revolvers are capable of firing without reloading.

LCMs obviously cannot help shooters who fire no more rounds than could be fired without LCMs, so the inclusion of “nonaffectable” cases with only four to six victims would dilute the sample, reducing the percent of sample incidents in which an LCM might have affected the number of casualties.

Further, had we studied only homicides with four or more dead victims, drawn from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports, we would have missed cases in which huge numbers of people were shot, and huge numbers of rounds were fired, but three or fewer of the victims died.


For example, in one widely publicized shooting carried out in Los Angeles on February 28, 1997, two bank robbers shot a total of 18 people - surely a mass shooting by any reasonable standard (Table 1).

Yet, because none of the people they shot died, this incident would not qualify as a mass murder (or even murder of any kind).

Exclusion of such incidents would bias the sample against the proposition that LCM use increases the number of victims by excluding incidents with large numbers of victims. We also excluded shootings in which more than six persons were shot over the entire course of the incident but shootings occurred in multiple locations with no more than six people shot in any one of the locations, and substantial periods of time intervened between episodes of shooting. An example is the series of killings committed by Rodrick Dantzler on July 7, 2011.

Once eligible incidents were identified, we searched through news accounts for details related to whether the use of LCMs could have influenced the casualty counts.

Specifically, we searched for

(1) the number of magazines in the shooter’s immediate possession,

(2) the capacity of the largest magazine,

(3) the number of guns in the shooter’s immediate possession during the incident,

(4) the types of guns possessed,

(5) whether the shooter reloaded during the incident,

(6) the number of rounds fired,

(7) the duration of the shooting from the first shot fired to the last, and (8) whether anyone intervened to stop the shooter.

Findings How Many Mass Shootings were Committed Using LCMs?

We identified 23 total incidents in which more than six people were shot at a single time and place in the U.S. from 1994 through 2013 and that were known to involve use of any magazines with capacities over ten rounds.


Table 1 summarizes key details of the LCMinvolved mass shootings relevant to the issues addressed in this paper.

(Table 1 about here) What fraction of all mass shootings involve LCMs?

There is no comprehensive listing of all mass shootings available for the entire 1994-2013 period, but the most extensive one currently available is at the Shootingtracker.com website, which only began its coverage in 2013.

-----

How Often Have Bystanders Intervened While a Mass Shooter Was Trying to Reload?

First, we consider the issue of how many times people have disrupted a mass shooting while the shooter was trying to load a detachable magazine into a semiautomatic gun.

Note that 16 it is irrelevant whether interveners have stopped a shooter while trying to reload some other type of gun, using other kinds of magazines, since we are addressing the potential significance of restrictions on the capacity of detachable magazines which are used only with semiautomatic firearms.

Thus, bystander intervention directed at shooters using other types of guns that take much longer to reload than a semiautomatic gun using detachable magazines could not provide any guidance as to the likelihood of bystander intervention when the shooter was using a semiautomatic gun equipped with detachable magazines that can be reloaded very quickly.

Prospective interveners would presumably be more likely to tackle a shooter who took a long time to reload than one who took only 2-4 seconds to do so.

Likewise, bystander interventions that occurred at a time when the shooter was not reloading (e.g., when he was struggling with a defective gun or magazine) are irrelevant, since that kind of intervention could occur regardless of what kinds of magazines or firearms the shooter was using.


It is the need to reload detachable magazines sooner and more often that differentiates shooters using smaller detachable magazines from those using larger ones.

For the period 1994-2013 inclusive, we identified three mass shooting incidents in which it was claimed that interveners disrupted the shooting by tackling the shooter while he was trying to reload.

In only one of the three cases, however, did interveners actually tackle the shooter while he may have been reloading a semiautomatic firearm.

In one of the incidents, the weapon in question was a shotgun that had to be reloaded by inserting one shotshell at a time into the weapon (Knoxville News Sentinel “Takedown of Alleged Shooter Recounted” July 29, 2008, regarding a shooting in Knoxville, TN on July 27, 2008), and so the incident is irrelevant to the effects of detachable LCMs.


In another incident, occurring in Springfield, Oregon on May 21, 1998, the shooter, Kip Kinkel, was using a semiautomatic gun, and he was tackled by bystanders, but not while he was reloading.

After exhausting the ammunition in one gun, the shooter started 17 firing another loaded gun, one of three firearms he had with him.

The first intervener was shot in the hand in the course of wresting this still-loaded gun away from the shooter (The (Portland) Oregonian, May 23, 1998).


The final case occurred in Tucson, AZ on January 8, 2011.

This is the shooting in which Jared Loughner attempted to assassinate Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

The shooter was using a semiautomatic firearm and was tackled by bystanders, purportedly while trying to reload a detachable magazine.

Even in this case, however, there were important uncertainties.

According to one news account, one bystander “grabbed a full magazine” that the shooter dropped, and two others helped subdue him (Associated Press, January 9, 2011).

It is not, however, clear whether this bystander intervention was facilitated because

(1) the shooter was reloading, or because

(2) the shooter stopping firing when his gun or magazine failed to function properly.

Eyewitness testimony, including that of the interveners, was inconsistent as to exactly why or how the intervention transpired in Giffords shooting.

One intervener insisted that he was sure the shooter had exhausted the ammunition in the first magazine (and thus was about to reload) because he saw the gun’s slide locked back – a condition he believed could only occur with this particular firearm after the last round is fired.

In fact, this can also happen when the guns jams, i.e. fails to chamber the next round (Salzgeber 2014; Morrill 2014).

Complicating matters further, the New York Times reported that the spring on the second magazine was broken, presumably rendering it incapable of functioning.

Their story’s headline and text characterized this mechanical failure as “perhaps the only fortunate event of the day” (New York Times “A Single, Terrifying Moment: Shots, Scuffle, Some Luck,” January 10, 2011, p. A1)

. If the New York Times account was accurate, the shooter would not have been able to continue shooting with that magazine even if no one had stopped him from loading it into his gun.

Detachable magazines of any size can malfunction, which would at least temporarily stop a prospective mass shooter from firing, and thereby provide an opportunity for bystanders to stop the shooter.
It is possible that the bystander intervention in the Tucson case could have occurred regardless of what size magazines the shooter possessed, since a shooter struggling with a defective small-capacity magazine would be just as vulnerable to disruption as one struggling with a defective large-capacity magazine. Thus, it remains unclear whether the shooter was reloading when the bystanders tackled him.
-----
The offenders in LCM-involved mass shootings were also known to have reloaded during 14 of the 23 (61%) incidents with magazine holding over 10 rounds.

The shooters were known to have not reloaded in another two of these 20 incidents and it could not be determined if they reloaded in the remaining seven incidents.

Thus, even if the shooters had been denied LCMs, we know that most of them definitely would have been able to reload smaller detachable magazines without interference from bystanders since they in fact did change magazines.

The fact that this percentage is less than 100% should not, however, be interpreted to mean that the shooters were unable to reload in the other nine incidents.

It is possible that the shooters could also have reloaded in many of these nine shootings, but chose not to do so, or did not need to do so in order to fire all the rounds they wanted to fire. This is consistent with the fact that there has been at most only one mass shootings in twenty years in which reloading a semiautomatic firearm might have been blocked by bystanders intervening and thereby stopping the shooter from doing all the shooting he wanted to do. All we know is that in two incidents the shooter did not reload, and news accounts of seven other incidents did not mention whether the offender reloaded.

----

For example, a story in the Hartford Courant about the Sandy Hook elementary school killings in 2012 was headlined “Shooter Paused, and Six Escaped,” the text asserting that as many as six children may have survived because the shooter paused to reload (December 23, 2012). ''

The author of the story, however, went on to concede that this was just a speculation by an unnamed source, and that it was also possible that some children simply escaped when the killer was shooting other children.

There was no reliable evidence that the pauses were due to the shooter reloading, rather than his guns jamming or the shooter simply choosing to pause his shooting while his gun was still loaded.

The plausibility of the “victims escape” rationale depends on the average rates of fire that shooters in mass shootings typically maintain.

If they fire very fast, the 2-4 seconds it takes to change box-type detachable magazines could produce a slowing of the rate of fire that the shooters otherwise would have maintained without the magazine changes, increasing the average time between rounds fired and potentially allowing more victims to escape during the betweenshot intervals.

On the other hand, if mass shooters fire their guns with the average interval between shots lasting more than 2-4 seconds, the pauses due to additional magazine changes would be no longer than the pauses the shooter typically took between shots even when not reloading.

In that case, there would be no more opportunity for potential victims to escape than there would have been without the additional magazine changes

-----

In sum, in nearly all LCM-involved mass shootings, the time it takes to reload a detachable magazine is no greater than the average time between shots that the shooter takes anyway when not reloading.

Consequently, there is no affirmative evidence that reloading detachable magazines slows mass shooters’ rates of fire, and thus no affirmative evidence that the number of victims who could escape the killers due to additional pauses in the shooting is increased by the shooter’s need to change magazines.

What is the virtue of LCMs? Why are they good? Why should they be protected?

 

[JakeStarkey]

2aguy is a paid NRAbot.

 

[2aguy]

I contend that the semi-automatic firing system fed by a high capacity magazine is not a constitutionally protected right. And citing that position is not taken on a whim. It is cited on the bullet riddled corpses of innocent Americans. If other weapons can be banned due to their unnecessary lethality, assault weapons can be too.

Is your definition of assault weapons semi-automatic weapons? That's......ridiculous, really. There are all sorts of semi-automatic weapons. Also, assault weapons is often a pretty vague term.

Magazine capacity is a somewhat different issue.

Let us then define "assault weapon".

My definition would include, but not be limited by these attributes; a weapon using a semi or fully automatic firing system and can be fed by a magazine containing ten or more rounds. A weapon whose rounds are fired in a tumbling trajectory rather than a smooth spiral trajectory.

It's the rate of fire that puts the 'mass' in 'mass shooting'. Revolvers containing six or fewer rounds, bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns containing eight or fewer rounds would be acceptable as these weapons are designed for self defense or sport.

My great fear is that the debate will be bogged down by cosmetics as the previous assault weapon ban debate was. Grips, stocks, flash suppressors have nothing to do with the essential problem of rate of fire.

I think that you would be including half or more of the firearms in the US, including rifles and pistols. I question whether a law banning all such weapons would pass USSC review.

Limiting magazine capacity, on the other hand, seems more likely to be considered acceptable.

A magazine limit is stupid.....really ,really stupid. It is a back door ban on semi auto pistols, since many of them are manufactured for 15-19 round magazines.....ban those, and the pistols are useless....since gun makers won't reconfigure their process for guns that hold those magazines.....that is the only reason for the magazine ban.....

Here...try some actual research into magazines....

Large-Capacity Magazines and the Casualty Counts in Mass Shootings: The Plausibility of Linkages by Gary Kleck :: SSRN

Do bans on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) for semiautomatic firearms have significant potential for reducing the number of deaths and injuries in mass shootings?
The most common rationale for an effect of LCM use is that they allow mass killers to fire many rounds without reloading.
LCMs are used is less than 1/3 of 1% of mass shootings.
News accounts of 23 shootings in which more than six people were killed or wounded and LCMs were used, occurring in the U.S. in 1994-2013, were examined.
There was only one incident in which the shooter may have been stopped by bystander intervention when he tried to reload.
In all of these 23 incidents the shooter possessed either multiple guns or multiple magazines, meaning that the shooter, even if denied LCMs, could have continued firing without significant interruption by either switching loaded guns or by changing smaller loaded magazines with only a 2-4 second delay for each magazine change.
Finally, the data indicate that mass shooters maintain slow enough rates of fire such that the time needed to reload would not increase the time between shots and thus the time available for prospective victims to escape.

--------

We did not employ the oft-used definition of “mass murder” as a homicide in which four or more victims were killed, because most of these involve just four to six victims (Duwe 2007), which could therefore have involved as few as six rounds fired, a number that shooters using even ordinary revolvers are capable of firing without reloading.

LCMs obviously cannot help shooters who fire no more rounds than could be fired without LCMs, so the inclusion of “nonaffectable” cases with only four to six victims would dilute the sample, reducing the percent of sample incidents in which an LCM might have affected the number of casualties.

Further, had we studied only homicides with four or more dead victims, drawn from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports, we would have missed cases in which huge numbers of people were shot, and huge numbers of rounds were fired, but three or fewer of the victims died.


For example, in one widely publicized shooting carried out in Los Angeles on February 28, 1997, two bank robbers shot a total of 18 people - surely a mass shooting by any reasonable standard (Table 1).

Yet, because none of the people they shot died, this incident would not qualify as a mass murder (or even murder of any kind).

Exclusion of such incidents would bias the sample against the proposition that LCM use increases the number of victims by excluding incidents with large numbers of victims. We also excluded shootings in which more than six persons were shot over the entire course of the incident but shootings occurred in multiple locations with no more than six people shot in any one of the locations, and substantial periods of time intervened between episodes of shooting. An example is the series of killings committed by Rodrick Dantzler on July 7, 2011.

Once eligible incidents were identified, we searched through news accounts for details related to whether the use of LCMs could have influenced the casualty counts.

Specifically, we searched for

(1) the number of magazines in the shooter’s immediate possession,

(2) the capacity of the largest magazine,

(3) the number of guns in the shooter’s immediate possession during the incident,

(4) the types of guns possessed,

(5) whether the shooter reloaded during the incident,

(6) the number of rounds fired,

(7) the duration of the shooting from the first shot fired to the last, and (8) whether anyone intervened to stop the shooter.

Findings How Many Mass Shootings were Committed Using LCMs?

We identified 23 total incidents in which more than six people were shot at a single time and place in the U.S. from 1994 through 2013 and that were known to involve use of any magazines with capacities over ten rounds.


Table 1 summarizes key details of the LCMinvolved mass shootings relevant to the issues addressed in this paper.

(Table 1 about here) What fraction of all mass shootings involve LCMs?

There is no comprehensive listing of all mass shootings available for the entire 1994-2013 period, but the most extensive one currently available is at the Shootingtracker.com website, which only began its coverage in 2013.

-----

How Often Have Bystanders Intervened While a Mass Shooter Was Trying to Reload?

First, we consider the issue of how many times people have disrupted a mass shooting while the shooter was trying to load a detachable magazine into a semiautomatic gun.

Note that 16 it is irrelevant whether interveners have stopped a shooter while trying to reload some other type of gun, using other kinds of magazines, since we are addressing the potential significance of restrictions on the capacity of detachable magazines which are used only with semiautomatic firearms.

Thus, bystander intervention directed at shooters using other types of guns that take much longer to reload than a semiautomatic gun using detachable magazines could not provide any guidance as to the likelihood of bystander intervention when the shooter was using a semiautomatic gun equipped with detachable magazines that can be reloaded very quickly.

Prospective interveners would presumably be more likely to tackle a shooter who took a long time to reload than one who took only 2-4 seconds to do so.

Likewise, bystander interventions that occurred at a time when the shooter was not reloading (e.g., when he was struggling with a defective gun or magazine) are irrelevant, since that kind of intervention could occur regardless of what kinds of magazines or firearms the shooter was using.


It is the need to reload detachable magazines sooner and more often that differentiates shooters using smaller detachable magazines from those using larger ones.

For the period 1994-2013 inclusive, we identified three mass shooting incidents in which it was claimed that interveners disrupted the shooting by tackling the shooter while he was trying to reload.

In only one of the three cases, however, did interveners actually tackle the shooter while he may have been reloading a semiautomatic firearm.

In one of the incidents, the weapon in question was a shotgun that had to be reloaded by inserting one shotshell at a time into the weapon (Knoxville News Sentinel “Takedown of Alleged Shooter Recounted” July 29, 2008, regarding a shooting in Knoxville, TN on July 27, 2008), and so the incident is irrelevant to the effects of detachable LCMs.


In another incident, occurring in Springfield, Oregon on May 21, 1998, the shooter, Kip Kinkel, was using a semiautomatic gun, and he was tackled by bystanders, but not while he was reloading.

After exhausting the ammunition in one gun, the shooter started 17 firing another loaded gun, one of three firearms he had with him.

The first intervener was shot in the hand in the course of wresting this still-loaded gun away from the shooter (The (Portland) Oregonian, May 23, 1998).


The final case occurred in Tucson, AZ on January 8, 2011.

This is the shooting in which Jared Loughner attempted to assassinate Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

The shooter was using a semiautomatic firearm and was tackled by bystanders, purportedly while trying to reload a detachable magazine.

Even in this case, however, there were important uncertainties.

According to one news account, one bystander “grabbed a full magazine” that the shooter dropped, and two others helped subdue him (Associated Press, January 9, 2011).

It is not, however, clear whether this bystander intervention was facilitated because

(1) the shooter was reloading, or because

(2) the shooter stopping firing when his gun or magazine failed to function properly.

Eyewitness testimony, including that of the interveners, was inconsistent as to exactly why or how the intervention transpired in Giffords shooting.

One intervener insisted that he was sure the shooter had exhausted the ammunition in the first magazine (and thus was about to reload) because he saw the gun’s slide locked back – a condition he believed could only occur with this particular firearm after the last round is fired.

In fact, this can also happen when the guns jams, i.e. fails to chamber the next round (Salzgeber 2014; Morrill 2014).

Complicating matters further, the New York Times reported that the spring on the second magazine was broken, presumably rendering it incapable of functioning.

Their story’s headline and text characterized this mechanical failure as “perhaps the only fortunate event of the day” (New York Times “A Single, Terrifying Moment: Shots, Scuffle, Some Luck,” January 10, 2011, p. A1)

. If the New York Times account was accurate, the shooter would not have been able to continue shooting with that magazine even if no one had stopped him from loading it into his gun.

Detachable magazines of any size can malfunction, which would at least temporarily stop a prospective mass shooter from firing, and thereby provide an opportunity for bystanders to stop the shooter.
It is possible that the bystander intervention in the Tucson case could have occurred regardless of what size magazines the shooter possessed, since a shooter struggling with a defective small-capacity magazine would be just as vulnerable to disruption as one struggling with a defective large-capacity magazine. Thus, it remains unclear whether the shooter was reloading when the bystanders tackled him.
-----
The offenders in LCM-involved mass shootings were also known to have reloaded during 14 of the 23 (61%) incidents with magazine holding over 10 rounds.

The shooters were known to have not reloaded in another two of these 20 incidents and it could not be determined if they reloaded in the remaining seven incidents.

Thus, even if the shooters had been denied LCMs, we know that most of them definitely would have been able to reload smaller detachable magazines without interference from bystanders since they in fact did change magazines.

The fact that this percentage is less than 100% should not, however, be interpreted to mean that the shooters were unable to reload in the other nine incidents.

It is possible that the shooters could also have reloaded in many of these nine shootings, but chose not to do so, or did not need to do so in order to fire all the rounds they wanted to fire. This is consistent with the fact that there has been at most only one mass shootings in twenty years in which reloading a semiautomatic firearm might have been blocked by bystanders intervening and thereby stopping the shooter from doing all the shooting he wanted to do. All we know is that in two incidents the shooter did not reload, and news accounts of seven other incidents did not mention whether the offender reloaded.

----

For example, a story in the Hartford Courant about the Sandy Hook elementary school killings in 2012 was headlined “Shooter Paused, and Six Escaped,” the text asserting that as many as six children may have survived because the shooter paused to reload (December 23, 2012). ''

The author of the story, however, went on to concede that this was just a speculation by an unnamed source, and that it was also possible that some children simply escaped when the killer was shooting other children.

There was no reliable evidence that the pauses were due to the shooter reloading, rather than his guns jamming or the shooter simply choosing to pause his shooting while his gun was still loaded.

The plausibility of the “victims escape” rationale depends on the average rates of fire that shooters in mass shootings typically maintain.

If they fire very fast, the 2-4 seconds it takes to change box-type detachable magazines could produce a slowing of the rate of fire that the shooters otherwise would have maintained without the magazine changes, increasing the average time between rounds fired and potentially allowing more victims to escape during the betweenshot intervals.

On the other hand, if mass shooters fire their guns with the average interval between shots lasting more than 2-4 seconds, the pauses due to additional magazine changes would be no longer than the pauses the shooter typically took between shots even when not reloading.

In that case, there would be no more opportunity for potential victims to escape than there would have been without the additional magazine changes

-----

In sum, in nearly all LCM-involved mass shootings, the time it takes to reload a detachable magazine is no greater than the average time between shots that the shooter takes anyway when not reloading.

Consequently, there is no affirmative evidence that reloading detachable magazines slows mass shooters’ rates of fire, and thus no affirmative evidence that the number of victims who could escape the killers due to additional pauses in the shooting is increased by the shooter’s need to change magazines.

What is the virtue of LCMs? Why are they good? Why should they be protected?

They are protected by the 2nd Amendment......moron....

Regular magazines allow normal, law abiding citizens to defend themselves...the same way you don't limit how much water a Fire Department can use to put out a house fire , you do not limit how much ammo an innocent person can have in their gun to save their lives.....

doofus.

And as the actual research from the link shows...you have no rational argument to ban them...

 

[2aguy]

2aguy is a paid NRAbot.

The NRA should hire me.......they need someone with my talent....

 

[Nosmo King]

At one point most of the patent medicines contained opium. At one point most of the insecticides sprayed on crops contained DDT.

Justice Scalia in his opinion on the Heller case cited no rights are absolute.

Not confiscation but banning the further sale, import, manufacture and distribution of semi-automatic firing systems and high capacity magazines. No one's right to self defense would be infringed.

Are opium or DDT Constitutionally protected rights? There is a higher bar involved here.

No, no rights are absolute. However, that does not mean that rights can be changed on a whim, ignoring all previous rulings or precedent.

Semi-automatic is a very low bar to try to set. I don't think it would work without a new amendment.

I contend that the semi-automatic firing system fed by a high capacity magazine is not a constitutionally protected right. And citing that position is not taken on a whim. It is cited on the bullet riddled corpses of innocent Americans. If other weapons can be banned due to their unnecessary lethality, assault weapons can be too.

Is your definition of assault weapons semi-automatic weapons? That's......ridiculous, really. There are all sorts of semi-automatic weapons. Also, assault weapons is often a pretty vague term.

Magazine capacity is a somewhat different issue.

Let us then define "assault weapon".

My definition would include, but not be limited by these attributes; a weapon using a semi or fully automatic firing system and can be fed by a magazine containing ten or more rounds. A weapon whose rounds are fired in a tumbling trajectory rather than a smooth spiral trajectory.

It's the rate of fire that puts the 'mass' in 'mass shooting'. Revolvers containing six or fewer rounds, bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns containing eight or fewer rounds would be acceptable as these weapons are designed for self defense or sport.

My great fear is that the debate will be bogged down by cosmetics as the previous assault weapon ban debate was. Grips, stocks, flash suppressors have nothing to do with the essential problem of rate of fire.

I think that you would be including half or more of the firearms in the US, including rifles and pistols. I question whether a law banning all such weapons would pass USSC review.

Limiting magazine capacity, on the other hand, seems more likely to be considered acceptable.

I outlined which weapons would be protected and not banned. Revolvers holding six rounds or fewer, bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns containing eight or fewer rounds. These guns are designed and used for sport or self defense.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Your talent is mediocre at best.

Every one of your opponents have turned you inside out, 2aguy.

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

People who use the word "compromise" when they know it means surrendering gun Rights in baby steps....a new one each time with the goal of ending the 2nd Amendment.

Whatever dude. They are going to Washington and they are going to make a lot of noise.

Yes....they will make noise, they will not address the issue with facts, truth or reality, they will be led by democrats to wail, nash their teeth and....make noise.......truth will not be used on that day....

The truth that they are tired of being prey will be told. The truth that the politicians can't figure out how to protect them will also be heard. We will see how the politicians respond. Something tells me you may not like the response this time. But we will see.

Yes.....if they vote in a stupid way I won't be happy.....the politicians know how to protect students since they have a private police force protecting them every single day in congress.......and the leadership of the parties know how to protect kids because they all have private security details of armed men...

They know how, the democrats don't want to implement it because they need dead children to push gun control.

Who is going to pay for armed security? Gun owners would be my guess. You down with that?

Why should we pay?

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Are opium or DDT Constitutionally protected rights? There is a higher bar involved here.

No, no rights are absolute. However, that does not mean that rights can be changed on a whim, ignoring all previous rulings or precedent.

Semi-automatic is a very low bar to try to set. I don't think it would work without a new amendment.

I contend that the semi-automatic firing system fed by a high capacity magazine is not a constitutionally protected right. And citing that position is not taken on a whim. It is cited on the bullet riddled corpses of innocent Americans. If other weapons can be banned due to their unnecessary lethality, assault weapons can be too.

Is your definition of assault weapons semi-automatic weapons? That's......ridiculous, really. There are all sorts of semi-automatic weapons. Also, assault weapons is often a pretty vague term.

Magazine capacity is a somewhat different issue.

Let us then define "assault weapon".

My definition would include, but not be limited by these attributes; a weapon using a semi or fully automatic firing system and can be fed by a magazine containing ten or more rounds. A weapon whose rounds are fired in a tumbling trajectory rather than a smooth spiral trajectory.

It's the rate of fire that puts the 'mass' in 'mass shooting'. Revolvers containing six or fewer rounds, bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns containing eight or fewer rounds would be acceptable as these weapons are designed for self defense or sport.

My great fear is that the debate will be bogged down by cosmetics as the previous assault weapon ban debate was. Grips, stocks, flash suppressors have nothing to do with the essential problem of rate of fire.

I think that you would be including half or more of the firearms in the US, including rifles and pistols. I question whether a law banning all such weapons would pass USSC review.

Limiting magazine capacity, on the other hand, seems more likely to be considered acceptable.

I outlined which weapons would be protected and not banned. Revolvers holding six rounds or fewer, bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns containing eight or fewer rounds. These guns are designed and used for sport or self defense.

Well, you are a dumbass, so....

 

[2aguy]

Are opium or DDT Constitutionally protected rights? There is a higher bar involved here.

No, no rights are absolute. However, that does not mean that rights can be changed on a whim, ignoring all previous rulings or precedent.

Semi-automatic is a very low bar to try to set. I don't think it would work without a new amendment.

I contend that the semi-automatic firing system fed by a high capacity magazine is not a constitutionally protected right. And citing that position is not taken on a whim. It is cited on the bullet riddled corpses of innocent Americans. If other weapons can be banned due to their unnecessary lethality, assault weapons can be too.

Is your definition of assault weapons semi-automatic weapons? That's......ridiculous, really. There are all sorts of semi-automatic weapons. Also, assault weapons is often a pretty vague term.

Magazine capacity is a somewhat different issue.

Let us then define "assault weapon".

My definition would include, but not be limited by these attributes; a weapon using a semi or fully automatic firing system and can be fed by a magazine containing ten or more rounds. A weapon whose rounds are fired in a tumbling trajectory rather than a smooth spiral trajectory.

It's the rate of fire that puts the 'mass' in 'mass shooting'. Revolvers containing six or fewer rounds, bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns containing eight or fewer rounds would be acceptable as these weapons are designed for self defense or sport.

My great fear is that the debate will be bogged down by cosmetics as the previous assault weapon ban debate was. Grips, stocks, flash suppressors have nothing to do with the essential problem of rate of fire.

I think that you would be including half or more of the firearms in the US, including rifles and pistols. I question whether a law banning all such weapons would pass USSC review.

Limiting magazine capacity, on the other hand, seems more likely to be considered acceptable.

I outlined which weapons would be protected and not banned. Revolvers holding six rounds or fewer, bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns containing eight or fewer rounds. These guns are designed and used for sport or self defense.

And the 2nd Amendment says you are stupid......as explained in Heller....

We do not interpret constitutional rights that way. Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, e.g., Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, 521 U. S. 844, 849 (1997), and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, e.g., Kyllo v. United States, 533 U. S. 27, 35–36 (2001), the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.

And Caetano.....

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/15pdf/14-10078_aplc.pdf

Third, the Massachusetts court said that stun guns could be banned because they were not "readily adaptable to use in the military", but the Supreme Court held that Heller rejected the argument that "only those weapons useful in warfare" were protected by the Second Amendment.[12]

----As to “dangerous,” the court below held that a weapon is “dangerous per se” if it is “ ‘designed and constructed to produce death or great bodily harm’ and ‘for the purpose of bodily assault or defense.’” 470 Mass., at 779, 26 N. E. 3d, at 692 (quoting Commonwealth v. Appleby, 380 Mass. 296, 303, 402 N. E. 2d 1051, 1056 (1980)).


That test may be appropriate for applying statutes criminalizing assault with a dangerous weapon. See ibid., 402 N. E. 2d, at 1056. But it cannot be used to identify arms that fall outside the Second Amendment. First, the relative dangerousness of a weapon is irrelevant when the weapon belongs to a class of arms commonly used for lawful purposes. See Heller, supra, at 627 (contrasting “‘dangerous and unusual weapons’” that may be banned with protected “weapons . . . ‘in common use at the time’”).

Second, even in cases where dangerousness might be relevant, the Supreme Judicial Court’s test sweeps far too broadly.

Heller defined the “Arms” covered by the Second Amendment to include “‘any thing that a man wears for his defence, or takes into his hands, or useth in wrath to cast at or strike another.’” 554 U. S., at 581.


Under the decision below, however, virtually every covered arm would qualify as “dangerous.” Were there any doubt on this point, one need only look at the court’s first example of “dangerous per se” weapons: “firearms.” 470 Mass., at 779, 26 N. E. 3d, at 692.

If Heller tells us anything, it is that firearms cannot be categorically prohibited just because they are dangerous. 554 U. S., at 636. A fortiori, stun guns that the Commonwealth’s own witness described as “non-lethal force,” Tr. 27, cannot be banned on that basis.---------

The court also opined that a weapon’s unusualness depends on whether “it is a weapon of warfare to be used by the militia.” 470 Mass., at 780, 26 N. E. 3d, at 693. It asserted that we followed such an approach in Miller and “approved its use in Heller.” 470 Mass., at 780, 26 N. E. 3d, at 693.

But Heller actually said that it would be a “startling reading” of Miller to conclude that “only those weapons useful in warfare are protected.” 554 U. S., at 624.

Instead, Miller and Heller recognized that militia members traditionally reported for duty carrying “the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home,” and that the Second Amendment therefore protects such weapons as a class, regardless of any particular weapon’s suitability for military use.


554 U. S., at 627; see id., at 624–625. Indeed, Heller acknowledged that advancements in military technology might render many commonly owned weapons ineffective in warfare. Id., at 627–628. But such “modern developments . . . cannot change our interpretation of the right.” Ibid.
In any event, the Supreme Judicial Court’s assumption that stun guns are unsuited for militia or military use is untenable.

 

[Nosmo King]

Is your definition of assault weapons semi-automatic weapons? That's......ridiculous, really. There are all sorts of semi-automatic weapons. Also, assault weapons is often a pretty vague term.

Magazine capacity is a somewhat different issue.

Let us then define "assault weapon".

My definition would include, but not be limited by these attributes; a weapon using a semi or fully automatic firing system and can be fed by a magazine containing ten or more rounds. A weapon whose rounds are fired in a tumbling trajectory rather than a smooth spiral trajectory.

It's the rate of fire that puts the 'mass' in 'mass shooting'. Revolvers containing six or fewer rounds, bolt action rifles and pump action shotguns containing eight or fewer rounds would be acceptable as these weapons are designed for self defense or sport.

My great fear is that the debate will be bogged down by cosmetics as the previous assault weapon ban debate was. Grips, stocks, flash suppressors have nothing to do with the essential problem of rate of fire.

I think that you would be including half or more of the firearms in the US, including rifles and pistols. I question whether a law banning all such weapons would pass USSC review.

Limiting magazine capacity, on the other hand, seems more likely to be considered acceptable.

A magazine limit is stupid.....really ,really stupid. It is a back door ban on semi auto pistols, since many of them are manufactured for 15-19 round magazines.....ban those, and the pistols are useless....since gun makers won't reconfigure their process for guns that hold those magazines.....that is the only reason for the magazine ban.....

Here...try some actual research into magazines....

Large-Capacity Magazines and the Casualty Counts in Mass Shootings: The Plausibility of Linkages by Gary Kleck :: SSRN

Do bans on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) for semiautomatic firearms have significant potential for reducing the number of deaths and injuries in mass shootings?
The most common rationale for an effect of LCM use is that they allow mass killers to fire many rounds without reloading.
LCMs are used is less than 1/3 of 1% of mass shootings.
News accounts of 23 shootings in which more than six people were killed or wounded and LCMs were used, occurring in the U.S. in 1994-2013, were examined.
There was only one incident in which the shooter may have been stopped by bystander intervention when he tried to reload.
In all of these 23 incidents the shooter possessed either multiple guns or multiple magazines, meaning that the shooter, even if denied LCMs, could have continued firing without significant interruption by either switching loaded guns or by changing smaller loaded magazines with only a 2-4 second delay for each magazine change.
Finally, the data indicate that mass shooters maintain slow enough rates of fire such that the time needed to reload would not increase the time between shots and thus the time available for prospective victims to escape.

--------

We did not employ the oft-used definition of “mass murder” as a homicide in which four or more victims were killed, because most of these involve just four to six victims (Duwe 2007), which could therefore have involved as few as six rounds fired, a number that shooters using even ordinary revolvers are capable of firing without reloading.

LCMs obviously cannot help shooters who fire no more rounds than could be fired without LCMs, so the inclusion of “nonaffectable” cases with only four to six victims would dilute the sample, reducing the percent of sample incidents in which an LCM might have affected the number of casualties.

Further, had we studied only homicides with four or more dead victims, drawn from the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports, we would have missed cases in which huge numbers of people were shot, and huge numbers of rounds were fired, but three or fewer of the victims died.


For example, in one widely publicized shooting carried out in Los Angeles on February 28, 1997, two bank robbers shot a total of 18 people - surely a mass shooting by any reasonable standard (Table 1).

Yet, because none of the people they shot died, this incident would not qualify as a mass murder (or even murder of any kind).

Exclusion of such incidents would bias the sample against the proposition that LCM use increases the number of victims by excluding incidents with large numbers of victims. We also excluded shootings in which more than six persons were shot over the entire course of the incident but shootings occurred in multiple locations with no more than six people shot in any one of the locations, and substantial periods of time intervened between episodes of shooting. An example is the series of killings committed by Rodrick Dantzler on July 7, 2011.

Once eligible incidents were identified, we searched through news accounts for details related to whether the use of LCMs could have influenced the casualty counts.

Specifically, we searched for

(1) the number of magazines in the shooter’s immediate possession,

(2) the capacity of the largest magazine,

(3) the number of guns in the shooter’s immediate possession during the incident,

(4) the types of guns possessed,

(5) whether the shooter reloaded during the incident,

(6) the number of rounds fired,

(7) the duration of the shooting from the first shot fired to the last, and (8) whether anyone intervened to stop the shooter.

Findings How Many Mass Shootings were Committed Using LCMs?

We identified 23 total incidents in which more than six people were shot at a single time and place in the U.S. from 1994 through 2013 and that were known to involve use of any magazines with capacities over ten rounds.


Table 1 summarizes key details of the LCMinvolved mass shootings relevant to the issues addressed in this paper.

(Table 1 about here) What fraction of all mass shootings involve LCMs?

There is no comprehensive listing of all mass shootings available for the entire 1994-2013 period, but the most extensive one currently available is at the Shootingtracker.com website, which only began its coverage in 2013.

-----

How Often Have Bystanders Intervened While a Mass Shooter Was Trying to Reload?

First, we consider the issue of how many times people have disrupted a mass shooting while the shooter was trying to load a detachable magazine into a semiautomatic gun.

Note that 16 it is irrelevant whether interveners have stopped a shooter while trying to reload some other type of gun, using other kinds of magazines, since we are addressing the potential significance of restrictions on the capacity of detachable magazines which are used only with semiautomatic firearms.

Thus, bystander intervention directed at shooters using other types of guns that take much longer to reload than a semiautomatic gun using detachable magazines could not provide any guidance as to the likelihood of bystander intervention when the shooter was using a semiautomatic gun equipped with detachable magazines that can be reloaded very quickly.

Prospective interveners would presumably be more likely to tackle a shooter who took a long time to reload than one who took only 2-4 seconds to do so.

Likewise, bystander interventions that occurred at a time when the shooter was not reloading (e.g., when he was struggling with a defective gun or magazine) are irrelevant, since that kind of intervention could occur regardless of what kinds of magazines or firearms the shooter was using.


It is the need to reload detachable magazines sooner and more often that differentiates shooters using smaller detachable magazines from those using larger ones.

For the period 1994-2013 inclusive, we identified three mass shooting incidents in which it was claimed that interveners disrupted the shooting by tackling the shooter while he was trying to reload.

In only one of the three cases, however, did interveners actually tackle the shooter while he may have been reloading a semiautomatic firearm.

In one of the incidents, the weapon in question was a shotgun that had to be reloaded by inserting one shotshell at a time into the weapon (Knoxville News Sentinel “Takedown of Alleged Shooter Recounted” July 29, 2008, regarding a shooting in Knoxville, TN on July 27, 2008), and so the incident is irrelevant to the effects of detachable LCMs.


In another incident, occurring in Springfield, Oregon on May 21, 1998, the shooter, Kip Kinkel, was using a semiautomatic gun, and he was tackled by bystanders, but not while he was reloading.

After exhausting the ammunition in one gun, the shooter started 17 firing another loaded gun, one of three firearms he had with him.

The first intervener was shot in the hand in the course of wresting this still-loaded gun away from the shooter (The (Portland) Oregonian, May 23, 1998).


The final case occurred in Tucson, AZ on January 8, 2011.

This is the shooting in which Jared Loughner attempted to assassinate Representative Gabrielle Giffords.

The shooter was using a semiautomatic firearm and was tackled by bystanders, purportedly while trying to reload a detachable magazine.

Even in this case, however, there were important uncertainties.

According to one news account, one bystander “grabbed a full magazine” that the shooter dropped, and two others helped subdue him (Associated Press, January 9, 2011).

It is not, however, clear whether this bystander intervention was facilitated because

(1) the shooter was reloading, or because

(2) the shooter stopping firing when his gun or magazine failed to function properly.

Eyewitness testimony, including that of the interveners, was inconsistent as to exactly why or how the intervention transpired in Giffords shooting.

One intervener insisted that he was sure the shooter had exhausted the ammunition in the first magazine (and thus was about to reload) because he saw the gun’s slide locked back – a condition he believed could only occur with this particular firearm after the last round is fired.

In fact, this can also happen when the guns jams, i.e. fails to chamber the next round (Salzgeber 2014; Morrill 2014).

Complicating matters further, the New York Times reported that the spring on the second magazine was broken, presumably rendering it incapable of functioning.

Their story’s headline and text characterized this mechanical failure as “perhaps the only fortunate event of the day” (New York Times “A Single, Terrifying Moment: Shots, Scuffle, Some Luck,” January 10, 2011, p. A1)

. If the New York Times account was accurate, the shooter would not have been able to continue shooting with that magazine even if no one had stopped him from loading it into his gun.

Detachable magazines of any size can malfunction, which would at least temporarily stop a prospective mass shooter from firing, and thereby provide an opportunity for bystanders to stop the shooter.
It is possible that the bystander intervention in the Tucson case could have occurred regardless of what size magazines the shooter possessed, since a shooter struggling with a defective small-capacity magazine would be just as vulnerable to disruption as one struggling with a defective large-capacity magazine. Thus, it remains unclear whether the shooter was reloading when the bystanders tackled him.
-----
The offenders in LCM-involved mass shootings were also known to have reloaded during 14 of the 23 (61%) incidents with magazine holding over 10 rounds.

The shooters were known to have not reloaded in another two of these 20 incidents and it could not be determined if they reloaded in the remaining seven incidents.

Thus, even if the shooters had been denied LCMs, we know that most of them definitely would have been able to reload smaller detachable magazines without interference from bystanders since they in fact did change magazines.

The fact that this percentage is less than 100% should not, however, be interpreted to mean that the shooters were unable to reload in the other nine incidents.

It is possible that the shooters could also have reloaded in many of these nine shootings, but chose not to do so, or did not need to do so in order to fire all the rounds they wanted to fire. This is consistent with the fact that there has been at most only one mass shootings in twenty years in which reloading a semiautomatic firearm might have been blocked by bystanders intervening and thereby stopping the shooter from doing all the shooting he wanted to do. All we know is that in two incidents the shooter did not reload, and news accounts of seven other incidents did not mention whether the offender reloaded.

----

For example, a story in the Hartford Courant about the Sandy Hook elementary school killings in 2012 was headlined “Shooter Paused, and Six Escaped,” the text asserting that as many as six children may have survived because the shooter paused to reload (December 23, 2012). ''

The author of the story, however, went on to concede that this was just a speculation by an unnamed source, and that it was also possible that some children simply escaped when the killer was shooting other children.

There was no reliable evidence that the pauses were due to the shooter reloading, rather than his guns jamming or the shooter simply choosing to pause his shooting while his gun was still loaded.

The plausibility of the “victims escape” rationale depends on the average rates of fire that shooters in mass shootings typically maintain.

If they fire very fast, the 2-4 seconds it takes to change box-type detachable magazines could produce a slowing of the rate of fire that the shooters otherwise would have maintained without the magazine changes, increasing the average time between rounds fired and potentially allowing more victims to escape during the betweenshot intervals.

On the other hand, if mass shooters fire their guns with the average interval between shots lasting more than 2-4 seconds, the pauses due to additional magazine changes would be no longer than the pauses the shooter typically took between shots even when not reloading.

In that case, there would be no more opportunity for potential victims to escape than there would have been without the additional magazine changes

-----

In sum, in nearly all LCM-involved mass shootings, the time it takes to reload a detachable magazine is no greater than the average time between shots that the shooter takes anyway when not reloading.

Consequently, there is no affirmative evidence that reloading detachable magazines slows mass shooters’ rates of fire, and thus no affirmative evidence that the number of victims who could escape the killers due to additional pauses in the shooting is increased by the shooter’s need to change magazines.

What is the virtue of LCMs? Why are they good? Why should they be protected?

They are protected by the 2nd Amendment......moron....

Regular magazines allow normal, law abiding citizens to defend themselves...the same way you don't limit how much water a Fire Department can use to put out a house fire , you do not limit how much ammo an innocent person can have in their gun to save their lives.....

doofus.

And as the actual research from the link shows...you have no rational argument to ban them...

The second amendment does not specifically mention LCMs. The framers of the second amendment could not imagine LCMs, or sewage treatment plants or cotton candy for that matter.

And, again, it's not necessary to sign your posts, my dear moron. If I were you, I'd try to find a more complimentary moniker for myself. Doofus makes you sound as if you don't have much confidence in yourself. Personally, I rarely find the need to apply a signature to my posts, but I will in this particular one.

Signed,
More clever than you can aspire to be.