00 - The Basics

The rate and effectiveness of fire (including reload times) is less about the gun or magazine than the training of the shooter.

1. If you give a good shooter a bolt action rifle with a fixed magazine, he can kill more people than a neophyte with a fully automatic machine gun.
2. With an experienced shooter the death rate will be more dependent on response times, and crowd reaction than gun type.
3. You can't charge and disarm someone during reload is moronic, it virtually never happens.
4. The premise is that a mass shooter won't break the law by buying/making an illegal high capacity magazine, use a backup gun (so they don't need to reload), and that while killing the first 11 people (10+1) is OK, that on the 12th round someone can cover a 20-30' gap and subdue the shooter in the <1 second it takes to reload is absurd, it takes more than that to figure out the shooter is reloading and react -- assuming they don't step behind cover to reload (like most do).
5. The most popular weapon is pistols, but mass murderers have used lever action, pump shotguns, fixed magazines, 23 used revolvers and one of the worst used a bolt action rifle.
6. If you could successfully take away their guns (impractical), all you would do is move them to more effective weapons that have killed more: Trucks, Bombs (Oklahoma City), fire , or box cutters (9/11). Even shotguns or lever action guns where you can add rounds while you're moving/firing.
   
   

This article shows how fast reloads are, and absurdly impractical magazine bans are at making a difference. Now some will whine, "but they're an experts"... while that's often true, many mass shooters train in advance or play games. And the difference between a pro and a good amateur is a second or fraction of a second: it doesn't really matter. There's a reason why no one has successfully rushed a mass shooter during a reload. Remember, you don't know when they're going to reload, thus by the time you've figured out they're reloading, they've already reloaded. So the problem is gun-users know more than the gun-controllers. And the informed are not resisting because they like their murder-toys, they resist because they know what won't be effective. If gun-controllers were more rational, they would ask the experts, and listen to the answers.

Reload Times

There's a fallacy amongst hoplophobes (gun phobics) that limiting magazines to 10 rounds will help against mass shooters, or that assault rifles are somehow unique. However: The time it takes to reload is less than the reaction time to know that a shooter is reloading. We fought all wars prior to the Korean war without removable magazines, and all wars prior to Vietnam with 10 round magazines (or less). The FBI studied mass shootings and found that the average mass shooting is 10 rounds over 5 minutes, most never even need to reload. In all the mass shootings in the U.S. there has never been a case where a shooter was charged and disarmed during a reload, even with revolvers. Shooting sprees end by them leaving, surrender, suicide or getting shot: virtually never by takedowns during reloads. Magazine limits, assault rifle bans, outlawing removable magazines, and so on, sound great to those who don't know any better, but is just an infuriating ineffective annoyance to gun owners. Each bad law like this, makes it harder to pass "good" laws, as the tolerance for any more legislation was been wasted dividing us, instead of making a real difference. more...