10 U.S. Mass Shootings Involving High-Capacity Ammunition Magazines (Slide Show)

High-capacity ammunition magazines are the common thread that runs through most mass shootings: giving attackers the ability to fire numerous bullets without reloading. Last week's attack in Arizona joins a long list of mass shootings made possible by the easy availability of high-capacity ammunition magazines: Columbine, Virginia Tech, Luby's, Stockton, and all too many others.

Earlier this week, Representative Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) announced plans to introduce federal legislation to ban high-capacity ammunition magazines. A similar ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines was in place for 10 years as part of the now-expired federal assault weapons ban.

Here are just 10 of the U.S. mass shootings that involved high-capacity ammunition magazines.

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Hartford Distributors

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On August 3, 2010, concealed handgun permit holder Omar Thornton, armed with a Sturm, Ruger SR9 semi-automatic pistol and high-capacity ammunition magazine, opened fire on his co-workers at beer distributor Hartford Distributors in Manchester, CT, killing eight and wounding two before taking his own life.

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On August 3, 2010, concealed handgun permit holder Omar Thornton, armed with a Sturm, Ruger SR9 semi-automatic pistol and high-capacity ammunition magazine, opened fire on his co-workers at beer distributor Hartford Distributors in Manchester, CT, killing eight and wounding two before taking his own life.

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Comments

[Bandofotters]

04:27 PM on 02/08/2011

Of course "high capacity" magazines 'are the common thread'. Could it be that the definition of "high capacity" was intentionally manufactured to include the standard magazines sold with the firearms used in these crimes making it that common thread? In short, most of the crimes mentioned in this piece were committed using the standard magazine that came with the gun. A 15-round magazine is not high capacity but politicians want to define them as such. If they did not then there would not be enough tragedies to support this puff piece.

[Cynth Bage]

10:29 AM on 02/06/2011

http://www.change.org/petitions/wal-mart_stop_selling_high_capacity_ammo_now

[Patriot Henry]

06:58 PM on 01/18/2011

Anyone want to guess how many "high capacity magazines" are now in the US? Since 2004 there have been a huge number of new AR-15s sold, along with the Glocks, XDs, M&Ps, Walthers, CZs, Berettas, etc most of which have standard magazine capacities of 11-19 rounds. At least one in ten Americans must own at least one such magazine and many have many more.

[emjoyce1071]

12:52 PM on 01/16/2011

Spelling/abbreviation error:
"Xerox Office Building in Honolulu, HA"
Hawaii is abbreviated HI not HA

[raker]

11:55 AM on 01/15/2011

Guns don't kill people; maniacs with easy access to automatic weapons because of Republicans and the NRA kill people.

[JimInHouston]

01:00 PM on 01/15/2011

"Guns don't kill people; maniacs with easy access to automatic weapons because of Republican­s and the NRA kill people. "

What automatic weapons are you talking about?

[Shawn Wake]

10:50 AM on 01/15/2011

so 10 shooting from 1989 to 2010 a 21 year span this dont seem to be a very good argument for any sort of laws to be made from except mabey for the removel of restricions on high cap mags as they are not hardly ever used in this sort of crimes

[Jay Doe]

08:04 PM on 01/14/2011

What amazes me about this act , and all the other Mass Shootings it that they are the acts of Troubled Crazy Cowards who believed that just because they were wronged in the world somehow, that buying a gun and shooting a bunch of innocent people would solve thier problems.

Blaming Glaston Glock, Walmart, Ammo Manufactucters, Rightwing Propoganda,Hi Capacity Magazines or "Loopholes in Gun Laws or Lax Gunlaws is plain counter productive as there is no countermeasure a Society can take to prevent "Crazy" without treating all of us like a Mental Patient or a Prisoner in Custody because a product might be misused.to hurt or harm another.

If we as a Society banned, or very strictly regulated any product because there was a potential risk of that product being misued to hurt or kill someone maliciously or accidently--then we as a Society could not ever function properly or even exist as a whole as the benefits of having these products availble out weigh the risks of using them.

[Cynth Bage]

10:48 AM on 02/06/2011

Sounds like hyperbole to me. Let's just stick to the facts: President George Bush signed into law the requirement for tougher screening processes--a facet of gun control.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-guns9dec09,0,5923876.story?coll=la-home-center

It's not about treating sane people as if they were crazy. Would you want to abolish child-safety caps on OTC and prescription medication containers because they assume we are all children? Speaking as someone who had to get my stomach pumped out as a small child because I got into my dad's prescription medication, I have to say that not all safety measures are an insult to capable adults of sound mind.

There is a legal term called "reasonable control" and too many people from time to time end up not exhibiting that sort of responsible behavior. Guys who go to duck blinds with a case of beer, for example, are not exhibiting reasonable control. Driving a car into a ditch shows that a driver does not have reasonable control. Getting into a fight with the missus and using a legally-owned gun in a crime of passion is not reasonable control.

I'm not a lawyer, but somehow even I get this concept. We are humans and we mess up from time to time. Grown men and women occasionally act like kids having a temper tantrum. Anonymous posters flame people and act out of control on a regular basis. This is reality, Jay.

[AG creative]

07:19 PM on 01/14/2011

I don't see the connection?

[Pasifikawv]

02:44 PM on 01/14/2011

Many of the example cited were not extended/high capacity magazines - just the standard magazines. Very few extended magazines like the one used in the AZ shooting are available for pistols. In fact, Glock stands alone in offering extended magazines for a pistol - and even then it is only available for 9mm Glock models. That Glock extended mag is not the standard mag that comes with the pistol, but must be bought seperately. There are no extended magazines of 20+ or 30+ available for the vast majority of pistols. What people are proposing is not to ban only after-market extended mags like the 33 rounder used in AZ, but also most standard magazines that come with popular pistols. Folks in MD, CA, IL, MA are under such a ban and cannot have standard capacity mags. They must special order low-capacity compliant magazines. Those bans have had no positive effect on rates of crime and violence. In many cases, crime rates increased once the ban was imposed.

[Angelus2007]

02:40 PM on 01/14/2011

While as tragic as those incident are, only 3 of the 10 occured after the ban expired. So in some cases the ban made no difference.

[blackraisin]

02:15 PM on 01/14/2011

Weren't "high capacity" magazines banned from sale and production in 1999 when Columbine happened?

[dvkrlsn]

05:45 PM on 01/14/2011

new production for civilians--YES, sale of existing stock to civilians-NO--and manufacturers stockpiled huge quantitities

[Mark0]

07:09 PM on 01/14/2011

So banning something, such as production of magazines holding more than 10 rounds, doesn't automatically make it evaporate from the face of the Earth?

...and doesn't make it impossible for criminals to obtain and use in the commission of criminal acts???

Simply shocking!

[bluck]

12:33 PM on 01/14/2011

When will they address the crime plague in the inner cities-Chicago, Detroit, St Louis, and in their backyard-Maryland. MD county's 13 killings exceed military deaths in Afghanistan this year... so much violence in those communities, and yet we focus on singular crimes by one lunatic?

[furblesnap]

09:25 AM on 01/14/2011

While any gun related death is tragic, what about the other causes? U.S. hospitals kill over 100,000 people per year and no one cares. Nosocomial (hospital-caused) infections and malpractice. The hospitals could stop this, but it would impact their profits, so they don't. So during the last 10-year ban on "military looking weapons" hospitals killed over one million people. A MILLION? How come no one cares? We've spent trillions on endless wars because 3,000 people were killed on 9/11. But since 911 hospitals have killed another one and a quarter MILLION people. Profits baby, profits.

[furblesnap]

09:13 AM on 01/14/2011

The previous ban banned high capacity magazines and "military looking" weapons and accouterments, such as flash suppressors. You know, flash suppressors and bayonet lugs have been responsible for so many deaths. Well, ok, none. The ban was supposed to stop all gun crimes. It didn't. When it was sunsetting banners said everyone would start killing everyone with machine guns. Crime actually fell. The law was completely useless and stupid, and any more to come will be the same. We can't wish the genie back into the bottle. Guns exist and can't be wished away, we have to deal instead with the societal issues and health care issues that bring about crimes in the first place.

[blackraisin]

02:13 PM on 01/14/2011

He includes Columbine in his report but that was during his beloved Assault Weapon Ban

[ChuckChuckerson]

07:30 AM on 01/14/2011

Less than 5% of homicides involve multiple victims per the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Source: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/multiple.cfm

So essentially any ban on 'high capacity' magazines could only possibly effect a very small amount of crimes.

Is this worth the very dear price that Democrats will pay for trying to create new gun control laws?

Is a ban on these magazines worth very possibly causing the election of a GOP president and congress in a few years?

[dvkrlsn]

12:48 PM on 01/14/2011

The Dems learned that lesson 15 years ago, got a good reminder in this election--too bad that the leading civilian disarmament advocates like Helmke, Hennigan, Sugarmann and Horwitz are still in denial