Just like the term "assault weapon," yet another major myth here is on the so-called "high-capacity magazine." This again, however, is a term that was made up by the gun control proponents. Generally, it is defined as any magazine that is over ten rounds. The problem however is that no where in the world of firearms was it ever considered that a gun of over ten rounds was high-capacity. For many hand guns, and rifles like AR-15s and AK-47s, 17-30 rounds is the standard-capacity magazine ("standard capacity" being the actual term for these magazines). A ten round magazine is a reduced-capacity magazine generally-speaking.
One of the common refrains heard is that, "If you can't hit the target with ten rounds or less, you shouldn't have a gun." But this ignores a few things that can happen in self-defense scenarios:
1) How you shoot when in a self-defense situation can be very different than how you shoot when relaxed and shooting at a range. At a range, the target is fixed and is not moving towards you with the intent of doing severe physical harm. Different people can react in different ways to such situations, but oftentimes, in any such situation where one's life is at stake, the brain reverts to a more primitive state. Fine motor skills literally break down. This is why if for example a person who is panicking might try ramming down a door instead of taking the time to just pull it open and then go through it. The same thing can happen in terms of shooting.
Some examples could be if you are out hunting and see a deer and shoot at it multiple times and miss. Well then you might come to the conclusion that your shooting skills need some work. On the other hand, let's say you're out hunting and suddenly, a grizzly bear comes charging at you from the bushes. You open fire and miss a few times, but then manage to take out the bear before it gets you (this has happened). Well the fact that you missed multiple times before hitting it no one would attribute to your being a bad shot, it is that your shooting skills can to a good degree go out the window when you have a bear charging you and you are trying to focus to take it out before it takes you out.
Another example could be if you place a foot wide plank of wood that is ten feet long on the ground and tell the average person to walk across it. Most people could probably do so. Now place that same plank one-hundred feet up in the air and tell the same people to walk across it, where if they fall off, they fall to their death. A lot of people either wouldn't be able to cross it or would end up falling off. Why? Because in such a life-or-death situation, the fine motor control that they need to maintain balance, which is fully intact while on the ground, goes out the window while they are up in the air.
The same problems can happen with regards to self-defense. How you shoot when relaxed at a range can be totally different than how you shoot when in a combat situation. So the idea that one should be limited to only ten rounds because some gun control proponents arbitrarily declare that that is all you "need" has no basis.
2) You might be dealing with a drugged-up opponent. Sometimes what makes people break into people's homes is that they get high on drugs. Being high on drugs can inhibit a person's reasoning, to the point where the sight of a gun being pointed at them in a sober state would make them stop coming and run away even, whereas in their drugged up state, they continue to try and attack. Drugs also can reduce any sense of pain and thus if you shoot the attacker, they can still keep coming.
This also leads to another misconception, which is that a person just drops with one shot. That is not the case, especially with handguns. Whether a person will drop or not can depend on a multitude of factors ranging from their level of adrenaline to where they have been shot (adrenaline can keep them coming). Being drugged-up can also increase things like anger and rage which can keep the attacker coming. Technically, the only things that will stop a person from coming when shot is that too much oxygen (i.e. blood) stops flowing to the brain and thus the person goes unconscious, or a direct severing of the nervous system from the brain (via taking out the spinal cord right at the neck). How fast the shooting of a person will cause the blood flow to their brain to stop depends on the gun, the ammunition, the distance, where the person is shot, and so forth.
There was for example the woman who was defending her children with a 6-shot revolver from a man who had broken into her home. She fired all six shots, missed once, and hit him five times. He did not drop, but instead decided he had had enough and ran out of the house. But what if he had decided to keep coming, say due to being high? She would have been defenseless at that point. What if he had a partner who broke in via a side window who came in? What if the partner was armed?
3) You might be dealing with multiple opponents, or even multiple drugged-up opponents
The above reasons are all examples of why police officers carry standard-capacity magazines. There is also the arbitrariness of the term, just like with the "assault weapon" term. After the Newtown slaughter, for example, some politicians in New York state (where I live), wanted to make it where a person could only possess two five round magazines (they were probably seeing it that that would not infringe on a person's ability to hunt, thinking the right is only about hunting). Instead, the law was made where now anything over seven rounds would be considered "high-capacity." It then quickly was made apparent to the state government that very few companies actually make seven round magazines, and so the law was changed to saying that you could continue to have ten round magazines, but could only load the full ten rounds while at a range shooting. While at home, you could only load the magazine with seven rounds.
Yes, apparently telling law-abiding citizens that they could only load a ten round magazine with seven rounds was somehow supposed to have an effect on criminals. Obviously, a criminal who is about the break the law by breaking into your home and then further break the law by stealing something and/or maiming or killing you and your family, is not going to dutifully abide by the law and only load a ten round magazine with seven rounds, and that is assuming that said criminal is even using a ten round magazine in the first place.
Luckily, at least this part of the law was struck down eventually by a court, as the judge found it "arbitrary and capricious."
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