Senate Democrats plan to hold the floor to protest inaction on gun legislation

[Slade3200]

Rubber bands? How about bump stocks? I thought that was a fair thing to ban. And yes, I don’t think we need a 30 round capacity in any weapon. The best opportunity to take down a shooter is when they reload.

Also, I’m not an activist. I have guns, they are fun to shoot. I don’t feel like a need them for self defense but I live in a safe area. I’m fine with regulations that make sense. So I’m in these discussion for more thought provocation than to push a strong agenda

The best opportunity to take down a shooter is when they reload.

This is not born out by any of the mass public shootings we have had....as the actual research shows, changing magazines takes 2-3 seconds......they are relaxed, not in a hurry, and easily change magazines in the face of unarmed victims.

The Sandy Hook shooter changed his magazines before they were empty, he used combat reloading which is changing after firing half the magazine then putting in a fresh one....the Gifford's shooter wasn't stopped because he was changing magazines....he was stopped because he allowed someone he thought he had killed to get behind him.

The best opportunity to take down a mass public shooter is to have someone shoot back at them as soon as possible.....limiting magazine capacity is simply a lie promoted by anti-gun activists working on the ignorance of uninformed Americans. And they don't want to ban 30 round magazines, they want to start with anything over 10 bullets...which means just about every regular size semi-auto pistol...made illegal due to their magazine capacity without ever having to actually ban them.

SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals

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

I.

Do bans on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) for semiautomatic firearms have significant potential for reducing the number of deaths and injuries in mass shootings?
========
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.
==========
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.

-----


-----
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

I have little doubt that there would have been far less damage of the Dayton shooter had a revolver or a hunting riffle with 6-10 bullets instead of his AR with a 100 round mag. I dont see why anybody needs an AR with a 100 round mag, ever.

And we aren't talking 100 round magazines......that is dishonest of you......you know they want to ban anything over 10....which would make millions of legally owned pistols illegal.....without having to vote to ban or confiscate them....

I am talking about 100 round mags because that’s exactly what was used in Dayton. Nothing dishonest about that. And I’d be fine with a 10 round limit

While "I" cannot think of a reason for owning a 100 round drum personally, I am sure there are those out there that can.
While you think there is no reason I should have a 30 round magazine for my AR... It does not give you (generally speaking) the right to limit it. I have not broken any laws that would allow for my 2A rights to be forfeit...
The biggest issue I have with any further laws being generated is they will only affect the law abiding. There are so many other issues to be addressed, mental health, enforcement of current gun laws, restriction of 2nd chances for those that fall within 2A forfeiture of rights, ensuring NICS is updated(!!!) That one is my personal pet peeve...

I agree that all those other things are important and should be discussed more. I’m also not going to throw a hissy fit for more regulations. But I would vote yes to regulate dangerous weapons. You can get a license to own your high capacity mag if you want it but I’d vote for an extra step to be taken to ensure you are responsible, mentally stable and not a risk to the public

 

[Slade3200]

No I didn’t. I was talking about machine guns

Then the AR-15, the civilian AK-47 are not machine guns by any definition......so you don't want those banned...right?

I don’t think so... wouldnt mind hearing a debate about it

That's what this is. So far it's emotions not changing facts.

And let me know if I'm wasting my time asking for the top 5 cities of gun control and how that's faring. That's getting ignored by you more than I was ignored on prom night.

I think gun violence in big cities is a result of poverty and crime and many many other factors... not gun control laws. It’s a much more complicated situation than a simple answer can address

So then what you are saying is that it's the people and not the guns. Am I correct? Because that's what we've been saying all along.

It’s the people first and foremost but some use guns to kill people so let’s not easily arm them with super dangerous weapons. We can be safe and responsible

 

[2aguy]

The best opportunity to take down a shooter is when they reload.

This is not born out by any of the mass public shootings we have had....as the actual research shows, changing magazines takes 2-3 seconds......they are relaxed, not in a hurry, and easily change magazines in the face of unarmed victims.

The Sandy Hook shooter changed his magazines before they were empty, he used combat reloading which is changing after firing half the magazine then putting in a fresh one....the Gifford's shooter wasn't stopped because he was changing magazines....he was stopped because he allowed someone he thought he had killed to get behind him.

The best opportunity to take down a mass public shooter is to have someone shoot back at them as soon as possible.....limiting magazine capacity is simply a lie promoted by anti-gun activists working on the ignorance of uninformed Americans. And they don't want to ban 30 round magazines, they want to start with anything over 10 bullets...which means just about every regular size semi-auto pistol...made illegal due to their magazine capacity without ever having to actually ban them.

SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals

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

I.

Do bans on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) for semiautomatic firearms have significant potential for reducing the number of deaths and injuries in mass shootings?
========
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.
==========
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.

-----


-----
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

I have little doubt that there would have been far less damage of the Dayton shooter had a revolver or a hunting riffle with 6-10 bullets instead of his AR with a 100 round mag. I dont see why anybody needs an AR with a 100 round mag, ever.

And we aren't talking 100 round magazines......that is dishonest of you......you know they want to ban anything over 10....which would make millions of legally owned pistols illegal.....without having to vote to ban or confiscate them....

I am talking about 100 round mags because that’s exactly what was used in Dayton. Nothing dishonest about that. And I’d be fine with a 10 round limit

While "I" cannot think of a reason for owning a 100 round drum personally, I am sure there are those out there that can.
While you think there is no reason I should have a 30 round magazine for my AR... It does not give you (generally speaking) the right to limit it. I have not broken any laws that would allow for my 2A rights to be forfeit...
The biggest issue I have with any further laws being generated is they will only affect the law abiding. There are so many other issues to be addressed, mental health, enforcement of current gun laws, restriction of 2nd chances for those that fall within 2A forfeiture of rights, ensuring NICS is updated(!!!) That one is my personal pet peeve...

I agree that all those other things are important and should be discussed more. I’m also not going to throw a hissy fit for more regulations. But I would vote yes to regulate dangerous weapons. You can get a license to own your high capacity mag if you want it but I’d vote for an extra step to be taken to ensure you are responsible, mentally stable and not a risk to the public

your high capacity mag if you want it but I’d vote for an extra step to be taken to ensure you are responsible, mentally stable and not a risk to the public

The Pulse Night Club shooter was able to pass a complete background check for his work as a security specialist. He had a co-worker call the FBI on him as being a suspected terrorist. The FBI interviewed him 3 different times, did a year long, comprehensive background check, and even used an under cover agent to approach him. He also went through a background check for each gun he purchased. He passed all of it with flying colors.

The Vegas shooter passed background checks for every single gun he purchased.

Mass public shooters can pass any background check......or, they get their guns illegally.

The only people you effect with any of your ideas are normal people who commit no crimes.

The Pulse shooter an the Vegas shooter? Could have killed just as many people with 10 round magazines. So your idea will have no effect on mass public shooters. But you will turn millions of normal gun owners into criminals if they want 5 more bullets in the gun they want to use to keep their families safe.....

This is why we think the anti-gun position is foolish.

 

[iceberg]

OK so 30 round mags. The only factual thing you've said yet we can look at. Now will this apply to the lowly 22?. 223 only?

Rubber bands allow rapid fire simulation. Now what? And please don't tell me you mean semi automatic guns period.

And please, let's not mix and match discussions again.

Rubber bands? How about bump stocks? I thought that was a fair thing to ban. And yes, I don’t think we need a 30 round capacity in any weapon. The best opportunity to take down a shooter is when they reload.

Also, I’m not an activist. I have guns, they are fun to shoot. I don’t feel like a need them for self defense but I live in a safe area. I’m fine with regulations that make sense. So I’m in these discussion for more thought provocation than to push a strong agenda

The best opportunity to take down a shooter is when they reload.

This is not born out by any of the mass public shootings we have had....as the actual research shows, changing magazines takes 2-3 seconds......they are relaxed, not in a hurry, and easily change magazines in the face of unarmed victims.

The Sandy Hook shooter changed his magazines before they were empty, he used combat reloading which is changing after firing half the magazine then putting in a fresh one....the Gifford's shooter wasn't stopped because he was changing magazines....he was stopped because he allowed someone he thought he had killed to get behind him.

The best opportunity to take down a mass public shooter is to have someone shoot back at them as soon as possible.....limiting magazine capacity is simply a lie promoted by anti-gun activists working on the ignorance of uninformed Americans. And they don't want to ban 30 round magazines, they want to start with anything over 10 bullets...which means just about every regular size semi-auto pistol...made illegal due to their magazine capacity without ever having to actually ban them.

SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals

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

I.

Do bans on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) for semiautomatic firearms have significant potential for reducing the number of deaths and injuries in mass shootings?
========
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.
==========
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.

-----


-----
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

I have little doubt that there would have been far less damage of the Dayton shooter had a revolver or a hunting riffle with 6-10 bullets instead of his AR with a 100 round mag. I dont see why anybody needs an AR with a 100 round mag, ever.

Then you want laws based on what "you think they need" instead of them thinking what they need.

No car needs to reach speeds over 100 mph, but most cars do.

Yes of course don’t we all support laws that we think we need? That’s a strange statement

Usually we can link the law to a positive effect for the law.

A law to make you feel better isn't that effective for society. Just you.

 

[2aguy]

Then the AR-15, the civilian AK-47 are not machine guns by any definition......so you don't want those banned...right?

I don’t think so... wouldnt mind hearing a debate about it

That's what this is. So far it's emotions not changing facts.

And let me know if I'm wasting my time asking for the top 5 cities of gun control and how that's faring. That's getting ignored by you more than I was ignored on prom night.

I think gun violence in big cities is a result of poverty and crime and many many other factors... not gun control laws. It’s a much more complicated situation than a simple answer can address

So then what you are saying is that it's the people and not the guns. Am I correct? Because that's what we've been saying all along.

It’s the people first and foremost but some use guns to kill people so let’s not easily arm them with super dangerous weapons. We can be safe and responsible

The Russian shooter.... 5 shot, pump action shotgun, tube fed, no magazine. 20 killed, 40 injured.

Is the pump action shotgun a super dangerous weapon?

 

[iceberg]

Then the AR-15, the civilian AK-47 are not machine guns by any definition......so you don't want those banned...right?

I don’t think so... wouldnt mind hearing a debate about it

That's what this is. So far it's emotions not changing facts.

And let me know if I'm wasting my time asking for the top 5 cities of gun control and how that's faring. That's getting ignored by you more than I was ignored on prom night.

I think gun violence in big cities is a result of poverty and crime and many many other factors... not gun control laws. It’s a much more complicated situation than a simple answer can address

So then what you are saying is that it's the people and not the guns. Am I correct? Because that's what we've been saying all along.

It’s the people first and foremost but some use guns to kill people so let’s not easily arm them with super dangerous weapons. We can be safe and responsible

Define "super dangerous" please. We are going back to scare tactics you said you hated the NRA for, but couldn't point to a single tactic. So you say you hate the emotional play but you keep using it. Do you hate yourself? If not, isn't that hypocritical?

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Then the AR-15, the civilian AK-47 are not machine guns by any definition......so you don't want those banned...right?

I don’t think so... wouldnt mind hearing a debate about it

That's what this is. So far it's emotions not changing facts.

And let me know if I'm wasting my time asking for the top 5 cities of gun control and how that's faring. That's getting ignored by you more than I was ignored on prom night.

I think gun violence in big cities is a result of poverty and crime and many many other factors... not gun control laws. It’s a much more complicated situation than a simple answer can address

So then what you are saying is that it's the people and not the guns. Am I correct? Because that's what we've been saying all along.

It’s the people first and foremost but some use guns to kill people so let’s not easily arm them with super dangerous weapons. We can be safe and responsible

"We" are not arming anybody. People who legally purchase guns pay for those guns themselves. People who illegally purchase guns do so with their own money.

Punishing "everybody" for the possible actions of a few is grade school stuff. What if we made a law that prohibited cars from going over 70 mph because of speeders who get into accidents and kill people? What if made a law that bars and restaurants could only sell 2% alcohol beer because some get drunk and run their car into a house, or hit police officers on the side of the road when they're with another vehicle?

Summers can get pretty miserable if we outlawed pools because of the drownings we have every single season.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

OK so 30 round mags. The only factual thing you've said yet we can look at. Now will this apply to the lowly 22?. 223 only?

Rubber bands allow rapid fire simulation. Now what? And please don't tell me you mean semi automatic guns period.

And please, let's not mix and match discussions again.

Rubber bands? How about bump stocks? I thought that was a fair thing to ban. And yes, I don’t think we need a 30 round capacity in any weapon. The best opportunity to take down a shooter is when they reload.

Also, I’m not an activist. I have guns, they are fun to shoot. I don’t feel like a need them for self defense but I live in a safe area. I’m fine with regulations that make sense. So I’m in these discussion for more thought provocation than to push a strong agenda

The best opportunity to take down a shooter is when they reload.

This is not born out by any of the mass public shootings we have had....as the actual research shows, changing magazines takes 2-3 seconds......they are relaxed, not in a hurry, and easily change magazines in the face of unarmed victims.

The Sandy Hook shooter changed his magazines before they were empty, he used combat reloading which is changing after firing half the magazine then putting in a fresh one....the Gifford's shooter wasn't stopped because he was changing magazines....he was stopped because he allowed someone he thought he had killed to get behind him.

The best opportunity to take down a mass public shooter is to have someone shoot back at them as soon as possible.....limiting magazine capacity is simply a lie promoted by anti-gun activists working on the ignorance of uninformed Americans. And they don't want to ban 30 round magazines, they want to start with anything over 10 bullets...which means just about every regular size semi-auto pistol...made illegal due to their magazine capacity without ever having to actually ban them.

SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals

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

I.

Do bans on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) for semiautomatic firearms have significant potential for reducing the number of deaths and injuries in mass shootings?
========
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.
==========
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.

-----


-----
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

I have little doubt that there would have been far less damage of the Dayton shooter had a revolver or a hunting riffle with 6-10 bullets instead of his AR with a 100 round mag. I dont see why anybody needs an AR with a 100 round mag, ever.

Then you want laws based on what "you think they need" instead of them thinking what they need.

No car needs to reach speeds over 100 mph, but most cars do.

Yes of course don’t we all support laws that we think we need? That’s a strange statement

No, not when we know they won't work we don't. Why would I support a law that only makes it inconvenient and dangerous to the average law abiding citizen? Because let's face it, the criminals will still kill when they want to. All we can do is try to defend ourselves from them. The more firepower we have, the better chance at survival.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

You compared the regulations of automobiles to the regulations of guns.

No I didn’t. I was talking about machine guns

Then the AR-15, the civilian AK-47 are not machine guns by any definition......so you don't want those banned...right?

I don’t think so... wouldnt mind hearing a debate about it

Debate what? Something that’s been illegal since the 30’s? Actually yeah let’s have that debate. They shouldn’t be illegal.

You are confused. I was talking about the discussion banning AR15s and the like.

So tell us, what is it you want to accomplish by banning AR's? Give us an exact result you are looking for.

 

[iceberg]

No I didn’t. I was talking about machine guns

Then the AR-15, the civilian AK-47 are not machine guns by any definition......so you don't want those banned...right?

I don’t think so... wouldnt mind hearing a debate about it

Debate what? Something that’s been illegal since the 30’s? Actually yeah let’s have that debate. They shouldn’t be illegal.

You are confused. I was talking about the discussion banning AR15s and the like.

So tell us, what is it you want to accomplish by banning AR's? Give us an exact result you are looking for.

He's said he's not for banning the AR, just limiting mag cap

 

[iceberg]

Rubber bands? How about bump stocks? I thought that was a fair thing to ban. And yes, I don’t think we need a 30 round capacity in any weapon. The best opportunity to take down a shooter is when they reload.

Also, I’m not an activist. I have guns, they are fun to shoot. I don’t feel like a need them for self defense but I live in a safe area. I’m fine with regulations that make sense. So I’m in these discussion for more thought provocation than to push a strong agenda

The best opportunity to take down a shooter is when they reload.

This is not born out by any of the mass public shootings we have had....as the actual research shows, changing magazines takes 2-3 seconds......they are relaxed, not in a hurry, and easily change magazines in the face of unarmed victims.

The Sandy Hook shooter changed his magazines before they were empty, he used combat reloading which is changing after firing half the magazine then putting in a fresh one....the Gifford's shooter wasn't stopped because he was changing magazines....he was stopped because he allowed someone he thought he had killed to get behind him.

The best opportunity to take down a mass public shooter is to have someone shoot back at them as soon as possible.....limiting magazine capacity is simply a lie promoted by anti-gun activists working on the ignorance of uninformed Americans. And they don't want to ban 30 round magazines, they want to start with anything over 10 bullets...which means just about every regular size semi-auto pistol...made illegal due to their magazine capacity without ever having to actually ban them.

SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals

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

I.

Do bans on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) for semiautomatic firearms have significant potential for reducing the number of deaths and injuries in mass shootings?
========
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.
==========
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.

-----


-----
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

I have little doubt that there would have been far less damage of the Dayton shooter had a revolver or a hunting riffle with 6-10 bullets instead of his AR with a 100 round mag. I dont see why anybody needs an AR with a 100 round mag, ever.

Then you want laws based on what "you think they need" instead of them thinking what they need.

No car needs to reach speeds over 100 mph, but most cars do.

Yes of course don’t we all support laws that we think we need? That’s a strange statement

No, not when we know they won't work we don't. Why would I support a law that only makes it inconvenient and dangerous to the average law abiding citizen? Because let's face it, the criminals will still kill when they want to. All we can do is try to defend ourselves from them. The more firepower we have, the better chance at survival.

The gun grabbers say where do we draw the line on weapon classification. Fine. Where?

Where do we also draw the line on passing ineffective laws? Let's get it all out there. If a fair question one way, fair the other.

 

[DamnDude]

Then the AR-15, the civilian AK-47 are not machine guns by any definition......so you don't want those banned...right?

I don’t think so... wouldnt mind hearing a debate about it

That's what this is. So far it's emotions not changing facts.

And let me know if I'm wasting my time asking for the top 5 cities of gun control and how that's faring. That's getting ignored by you more than I was ignored on prom night.

I think gun violence in big cities is a result of poverty and crime and many many other factors... not gun control laws. It’s a much more complicated situation than a simple answer can address

So then what you are saying is that it's the people and not the guns. Am I correct? Because that's what we've been saying all along.

It’s the people first and foremost but some use guns to kill people so let’s not easily arm them with super dangerous weapons. We can be safe and responsible

"Super dangerous"
Is there any other kind?
Isn't it kind of the point?
The point of the spear has to actually be useful if it is going to be a deterrent. Otherwise it is nothing more than bully and bluster.
What's that gonna get you when someone comes at you with evil intent? If you don't have the right tools to defend yourself what are you gonna use? A "non super dangerous weapon?"
We can go down many rabbit holes with your hyperbole. However, I'd like to see you answer the question posed to you in a multitude of ways as straight forward as possible. Why do you want to punish the law abiding, the vast majority that are the law abiding, who have not in any way, shape, form, nor fashion broken any laws because some mental defective, who are a very, very, miniscule percentage, lost their shit and decided it was okay to break the law and kill people?

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

The best opportunity to take down a shooter is when they reload.

This is not born out by any of the mass public shootings we have had....as the actual research shows, changing magazines takes 2-3 seconds......they are relaxed, not in a hurry, and easily change magazines in the face of unarmed victims.

The Sandy Hook shooter changed his magazines before they were empty, he used combat reloading which is changing after firing half the magazine then putting in a fresh one....the Gifford's shooter wasn't stopped because he was changing magazines....he was stopped because he allowed someone he thought he had killed to get behind him.

The best opportunity to take down a mass public shooter is to have someone shoot back at them as soon as possible.....limiting magazine capacity is simply a lie promoted by anti-gun activists working on the ignorance of uninformed Americans. And they don't want to ban 30 round magazines, they want to start with anything over 10 bullets...which means just about every regular size semi-auto pistol...made illegal due to their magazine capacity without ever having to actually ban them.

SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals

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

I.

Do bans on large-capacity magazines (LCMs) for semiautomatic firearms have significant potential for reducing the number of deaths and injuries in mass shootings?
========
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.
==========
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.

-----


-----
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

I have little doubt that there would have been far less damage of the Dayton shooter had a revolver or a hunting riffle with 6-10 bullets instead of his AR with a 100 round mag. I dont see why anybody needs an AR with a 100 round mag, ever.

Then you want laws based on what "you think they need" instead of them thinking what they need.

No car needs to reach speeds over 100 mph, but most cars do.

Yes of course don’t we all support laws that we think we need? That’s a strange statement

No, not when we know they won't work we don't. Why would I support a law that only makes it inconvenient and dangerous to the average law abiding citizen? Because let's face it, the criminals will still kill when they want to. All we can do is try to defend ourselves from them. The more firepower we have, the better chance at survival.

The gun grabbers say where do we draw the line on weapon classification. Fine. Where?

Where do we also draw the line on passing ineffective laws? Let's get it all out there. If a fair question one way, fair the other.

The problem with lines is they can be moved depending on who is in power at the time. The way to stop that is not to allow lines in the first place.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Then the AR-15, the civilian AK-47 are not machine guns by any definition......so you don't want those banned...right?

I don’t think so... wouldnt mind hearing a debate about it

Debate what? Something that’s been illegal since the 30’s? Actually yeah let’s have that debate. They shouldn’t be illegal.

You are confused. I was talking about the discussion banning AR15s and the like.

So tell us, what is it you want to accomplish by banning AR's? Give us an exact result you are looking for.

He's said he's not for banning the AR, just limiting mag cap

Then the question can easily be adjusted for that. I just want to know what his goal is.

If he says to reduce the amount of deaths in a mass murder, then his stance makes sense. If he says to stop mass murders, then it simply doesn't.

 

[iceberg]

I have little doubt that there would have been far less damage of the Dayton shooter had a revolver or a hunting riffle with 6-10 bullets instead of his AR with a 100 round mag. I dont see why anybody needs an AR with a 100 round mag, ever.

Then you want laws based on what "you think they need" instead of them thinking what they need.

No car needs to reach speeds over 100 mph, but most cars do.

Yes of course don’t we all support laws that we think we need? That’s a strange statement

No, not when we know they won't work we don't. Why would I support a law that only makes it inconvenient and dangerous to the average law abiding citizen? Because let's face it, the criminals will still kill when they want to. All we can do is try to defend ourselves from them. The more firepower we have, the better chance at survival.

The gun grabbers say where do we draw the line on weapon classification. Fine. Where?

Where do we also draw the line on passing ineffective laws? Let's get it all out there. If a fair question one way, fair the other.

The problem with lines is they can be moved depending on who is in power at the time. The way to stop that is not to allow lines in the first place.

Kinda my point. If you wanna draw lines don't think it will only happen where YOU want.

 

[iceberg]

I don’t think so... wouldnt mind hearing a debate about it

Debate what? Something that’s been illegal since the 30’s? Actually yeah let’s have that debate. They shouldn’t be illegal.

You are confused. I was talking about the discussion banning AR15s and the like.

So tell us, what is it you want to accomplish by banning AR's? Give us an exact result you are looking for.

He's said he's not for banning the AR, just limiting mag cap

Then the question can easily be adjusted for that. I just want to know what his goal is.

If he says to reduce the amount of deaths in a mass murder, then his stance makes sense. If he says to stop mass murders, then it simply doesn't.

Asked for goal to start. Reduce deaths. Great, now don't pass any laws til you can equate said law to goal.

 

[DamnDude]

Debate what? Something that’s been illegal since the 30’s? Actually yeah let’s have that debate. They shouldn’t be illegal.

You are confused. I was talking about the discussion banning AR15s and the like.

So tell us, what is it you want to accomplish by banning AR's? Give us an exact result you are looking for.

He's said he's not for banning the AR, just limiting mag cap

Then the question can easily be adjusted for that. I just want to know what his goal is.

If he says to reduce the amount of deaths in a mass murder, then his stance makes sense. If he says to stop mass murders, then it simply doesn't.

Asked for goal to start. Reduce deaths. Great, now don't pass any laws til you can equate said law to goal.

All to often knee jerk reactions tend to be a downfall worse than what was being reacted to. Unintended consequences seem to rear their ugly heads all the time.
Any type of legislation should be ran through a process to minimize as much of the unintended consequences as possible. I get that not all of them will be caught, but I'm sure they can be minimized.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Debate what? Something that’s been illegal since the 30’s? Actually yeah let’s have that debate. They shouldn’t be illegal.

You are confused. I was talking about the discussion banning AR15s and the like.

So tell us, what is it you want to accomplish by banning AR's? Give us an exact result you are looking for.

He's said he's not for banning the AR, just limiting mag cap

Then the question can easily be adjusted for that. I just want to know what his goal is.

If he says to reduce the amount of deaths in a mass murder, then his stance makes sense. If he says to stop mass murders, then it simply doesn't.

Asked for goal to start. Reduce deaths. Great, now don't pass any laws til you can equate said law to goal.

I just want Slade to admit as much. If he's happy with 22 people dead in a mass shooting instead of 23 or 24, then I'm fine with his argument. Then we can debate the issue if it's worth making millions of guns illegal to save one or two people a year.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Then you want laws based on what "you think they need" instead of them thinking what they need.

No car needs to reach speeds over 100 mph, but most cars do.

Yes of course don’t we all support laws that we think we need? That’s a strange statement

No, not when we know they won't work we don't. Why would I support a law that only makes it inconvenient and dangerous to the average law abiding citizen? Because let's face it, the criminals will still kill when they want to. All we can do is try to defend ourselves from them. The more firepower we have, the better chance at survival.

The gun grabbers say where do we draw the line on weapon classification. Fine. Where?

Where do we also draw the line on passing ineffective laws? Let's get it all out there. If a fair question one way, fair the other.

The problem with lines is they can be moved depending on who is in power at the time. The way to stop that is not to allow lines in the first place.

Kinda my point. If you wanna draw lines don't think it will only happen where YOU want.

I get that and you get that, but I don't think Slade understands it. We know how Democrats work; we have a history of it. We know they never stop at point A when point H is what they have in mind for the long term. We also know they can never get to point H if we can stop them at point A.

 

[Third Party]

I had to look up the definition of this one. Apparently, they're going to throw a temper tantrum and cause a disruption. Might be fun to watch on CSPAN

ˌhold the ˈfloor
speak at a public meeting, etc. for a long time, often stopping others from speaking:

hold the floor

"Senate Democrats are planning to hold the floor on Tuesday evening for an hours-long talk-a-thon on the issue of gun violence.

The floor marathon comes as the White House is struggling to find a place to land in the weeks-long debate over potential gun-law reforms.

“Many of my colleagues have seen their communities torn apart by gun violence; some by horrific mass shootings, others by a relentless, daily stream. Many of them have worked for years to bring commonsense gun safety measures before the Senate,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday, in announcing the plan from the Senate floor..."

Senate Democrats to hold the floor to protest inaction on gun violence

This is just a political stunt for 2020.