POSITION: The Brady Campaign strongly supports proposed legislation to ban large-capacity ammunition magazines. Large capacity ammunition magazines are designed to shoot a lot of people quickly and efficiently. They are useful for criminals and others intending violent attack, but are not needed for hunting or self-defense. New ammunition magazines containing more than 10 rounds were banned under the federal Assault Weapons Act, but Congress failed to renew the law in 2004, despite support from more than 70 percent of Americans (Harris, 2004). Only six states and D.C. limit the capacity of ammunition magazines.

The answers below rebut the most common gun lobby claims about large-capacity ammunition magazines.

1. They Claim: A ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines violates the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense.

Response: That’s not true. On June 26, 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 5-4 opinion in District of Columbia v. Heller. Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess handguns. However, he stressed that this right “is not unlimited.” The Second Amendment does not protect large-capacity ammunition magazines that turn guns into weapons of war.

Background: In June 2008, the Supreme Court reinterpreted the Second Amendment to protect an individual’s right to keep a gun in the home for self-defense (as opposed to only having a right to possess guns as part of a state-organized militia).

Although the Court was divided on the issue of an individual right to own a gun (five justices “for”; four justices “against”), all nine Justices agreed that a wide variety of gun laws are “presumptively lawful,” including prohibitions on “dangerous and unusual” weapons. These should include machine guns and military-style semiautomatic assault weapons. Large-capacity ammunition clips that facilitate mass destruction make guns into particularly dangerous and unusual weapons.

Key Fact: The courts have upheld the District of Columbia’s ban on large capacity ammunition magazines under the Heller interpretation of the Second Amendment. In Heller v. District of Columbia, 698 F. Supp. 2d 179 (D.D.C. 2010), the court found that the bans on assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines in current D.C. law do not implicate the core Second Amendment right. That’s because the Second Amendment protects only those weapons “in common use” and “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes, ”as opposed to weapons considered “dangerous and unusual,” as stated in District of Columbia v. Heller, 128 S. Ct. 2783 (2008).

Key Quote: Robert A. Levy, chairman of the Cato Institute and co-counsel in the 2008 Supreme Court case that established a Second Amendment right to bear arms (Heller), said during an NBC interview on January 12, 2011: “I don’t see any constitutional bar to regulating large--capacity magazines. Justice [Antonin] Scalia made it quite clear some regulations are permitted. The Second Amendment is not absolute” (Isikoff, January 12, 2011).

2. They Claim: Law abiding citizens need large-capacity ammunition magazines for self-defense so criminals can’t outgun them.

Response: It is ridiculous to suggest that the answer to criminals bent on harm with large-capacity magazines is to arm everyone with them. The Tucson shooter fired more than 30 bullets in 15 seconds. Banning large-capacity ammunition magazines will make it harder for criminals to arm themselves with these weapons of war.

Background: With hunting in decline and gun ownership falling, the gun industry is desperate to sell guns and accessories to gun owners for any reason. The gun industry markets large-capacity ammunition magazines both as excess military accessories and as self-defense tools. The public pays the price for these marketing strategies in mass shootings and dead police officers, while the industry profits.

The gun lobby claims three uses for large-capacity ammunition magazines: hunting, self-defense and target shooting. Any of those uses can be accomplished with the standard 10-round magazines that would continue to be available.

Key Anecdote: According to law enforcement, “There’s absolutely no doubt the magazines increased the lethality and the body count of this [the Tucson] attack” (Isikoff, January 9, 2011). In just 15 seconds, the shooter was able to fire more than 30 shots from one magazine, hitting 19 people, including Representative Giffords, and killing 6, including a 9-year-old girl and a federal judge. The damage was limited to the firepower of his magazine; when it was empty, he was stopped while attempting to reload.

Key Quotes:

- Former Republican Vice President under George W. Bush and avid hunter Dick Cheney stated in an interview with NBC:

”Whether or not there's some measure there in terms of limiting the size of the magazine that you can buy to go with a semiautomatic weapon — we’ve had that in place before. Maybe it’s appropriate to re-establish that kind of thing, but I think you do have to be careful obviously.”
(MSNBC, 2011)

- NRA member and former Montana State Senate President and former Secretary of State Bob Brown states:

“I own 18 handguns, rifles, and shotguns. I’m a longtime, dues-paying member of the National Rifle Association…I believe the Second Amendment is in the Constitution to provide the last defense of a free people against a tyrannical government. That said, I think there are limits. Either for self-defense or against a tyrannical government, why do we need or even want 30-shot handguns? The extended clip makes such a weapon totally impractical for those with carry permits. Getting such a clumsy weapon out of the bedside drawer to stop an intruder in the middle of the night may be fatally cumbersome.”
(Brown, 2011)

- Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan stated in the Wall Street Journal:

"What civilian needs a pistol with a magazine that loads 33 bullets and allows you to kill that many people without even stopping to reload? No one but people with bad intent" (Noonan, 2011).

- Florence, Alabama, Police Chief Rick Singleton stated:

“There’s no need for a law-abiding citizen to need that many rounds. In most shooting incidents where someone is protecting their home or property, there is an average of two or three shots fired” (Palmer, 2011).

- Bobby Timmons, President of the Alabama Sheriffs Association, stated:

“Extended magazines should not be allowed on handguns.” Timmons also stated that he will push for a ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines (Palmer, 2011).


3. They Claim: A ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines will turn law-abiding citizens into criminals. If a law enforcement officer sees a citizen with a large-capacity clip, the citizen has to prove to the police they possessed the clip before the ban went into effect.

Response: A law-abiding citizen cannot be turned into a criminal by legally owning a pre-ban large capacity ammunition magazine.

Background: Under the McCarthy bill (HR 308), mere possession of a large--capacity magazine legally owned before the ban goes into effect is not a crime. Only the transfer of the magazine after the law goes into effect would violate the law. The government would have the burden of showing that a large--capacity magazine was not owned prior to the law going into effect. It would have difficulty meeting that burden if the magazine lacks the markings of a new magazine, as required under the bill.

Key Fact: Standard hunting rifles are usually equipped with no more than 5-shot magazines, standard revolvers are 6-shot, and standard pistol magazines hold 6-10 rounds. Large capacity ammunition magazines can hold 30, 50 or even 100 rounds, enabling shooters to injure or kill many people in seconds before needing to reload.

Key Quotes:

Gun owner and former Montana State Senate President and former Secretary of State Bob Brown states,

- “If the government ever comes to get our guns, I’ll be defending mine at gunpoint. But I sure won’t be doing it with a 30-shot pistol. Neither will anybody else who is serious about power and accuracy.”
(Brown, 2011)

4. They Claim: If you ban large-capacity ammunition magazines, only criminals will have them and law-abiding citizens will be outgunned.

Response: Are you saying we should continue to make it easy for dangerous people to get their hands on ammunition magazines that hold up to 100 bullets? A ban on the sale of large-capacity ammunition magazines would make it harder for criminals to get them to commit mass murder. If manufacturers stop making these magazines for civilian use, criminals aren’t going to start making their own. The supply will eventually dry up.

Background: Bans on classes of dangerous weapons and ammunition devices make a difference, even in a country with millions of guns and large-capacity ammunition magazines. Evaluations of gun laws have shown that they make it harder for criminals to gain access to the banned weapons.

Key Facts: Bans on classes of dangerous weapons make a difference:

- A recent Washington Post study found that after 10 years of a federal ban on large-capacity ammunition magazines, many fewer were used in crimes. The rate of those magazines showing up in crimes in Virginia fell to a low of 10 percent of recovered weapons. In 2010, six years after the ban expired, the rate had rebounded to 22 percent of recovered weapons (Fallis and Grimaldi, 2011).

- Despite industry efforts to evade the federal Assault Weapons Ban, assault weapons showed up in crime 66 percent less often during the ban than before it (1.61 percent of crime guns during the ban vs. 4.82 percent of crime guns before the ban) (Siebel, p. 7).

- During the ban (from the late 1990s to 2003), assault weapons recovered in crime, as a percentage of all recovered crime guns, dropped by at least 33 percent. For the later years of ban, the drop is estimated to be as high as 70 percent (Koper, pp. 51-52).

- In June 1994, Maryland passed a law banning the sale of assault pistols and large--capacity magazines. This study found that, “…in the first 6 months of 1995, the Baltimore City Police Department recovered 55% fewer assault pistols than would have been expected had there been no ban” (Weil and Knox, p. 298).

Key Quote: Noted economists Phil Cook and Jens Ludwig stated in a CNN editorial in January 2001:

“Banning high-capacity magazines strikes us as a common-sense policy change that is likely to generate modest but important benefits to society at a very small cost, and so is worth doing” (Cook, 2011).
Philip J. Cook is ITT / Terry Sanford Professor of Public Policy at Duke University. Jens Ludwig is the McCormick Foundation Professor of Social Service Administration, Law and Public Policy at the University of Chicago

Sources

Brown, Bob, “Right to Bear Arms Doesn’t Cover 30-Shot Clips,” Billings Gazette, January 22, 2011

Cook, Philip J., and Jens Ludwig, “How To Cut Gun Death Toll,” CNN Opinion, January 12, 2011

Fallis, David S., and James V. Grimaldi, “Va. Data Show Drop in Criminal Firepower During Assault Gun Ban,” Washington Post, January 23, 2011

Harris Poll, Sept 9-13, 2004

Isikoff, Michael, “Tucson Shooting with High Capacity Magazines Reignites Gun Debate,” Open Channel MSNBC, January 9, 2011

Isikoff, Michael, “Gun Surprise: 2nd Amendment Advocate Says Ban on High-capacity Clips Passes Muster,” MSNBC, January 12, 2011

Koper, Christopher, Updated Assessment of the Federal Assault Weapons Ban: Impacts on Gun Markets and Gun Violence, 1994-2003, July 2004

MSNBC, “Cheney Opens Door to Tighter Gun Restrictions; Former VP: Limits On Gun Magazine Capacity May Be 'Appropriate' in Wake of Tucson,” MSNBC, January 19, 2011

Noonan, Peggy, “How to Continue the Obama Upswing; One Idea He Should Embrace: A Ban On Extended Ammo Clips,” Wall Street Journal, January 21, 2011

Palmer, Robert, “Authorities Say No Need For Extended Magazines,” Times Daily, January 24, 2011

Siebel, Brian J. with Gerald Nunziato of Crime Gun Solutions LLC, On Target: The Impact of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapon Ban, Washington, DC: Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, March 2004

Weil, Douglas S. and Rebecca C. Knox, “The Maryland Ban on the Sale of Assault Pistols and High-Capacity Magazines: Estimating the Impact in Baltimore,” American Journal of Public Health, 87(2) 1997: 297-298,

• Va. Data Show Drop In Criminal Firepower During Assault Gun Ban
• Assault Weapons: “Mass Produced Mayhem”
• On Target: The Impact of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapon Ban
• The Maryland Ban on the Sale of Assault Pistols and High-Capacity Magazines: Estimating the Impact in Baltimore