OMG! Gun Makers Have Flooded the Market With Standard Capacity Magazines! OMG!

Between 1990 and 2021, the gun industry flooded the American market with at least 717 million detachable firearm magazines that hold 11 or more rounds of ammunition, according to a study produced by the gun industry’s trade group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, and obtained by The Trace and Rolling Stone.

A magazine stores ammunition and feeds it into a gun’s chamber, allowing a person to continuously fire bullets without reloading. The larger the magazine, the more a person can shoot without interruption. In mass shootings, this makes it harder for people to escape, linking the device to high casualty counts.

Not all manufacturers of gun magazines provided data to the NSSF, the study stipulates, so its figures represent a “conservative estimate.” In addition, “Military and law enforcement sales were not counted.” The study, begun in 2023, says that roughly 46 percent of the magazines it accounted for—some 443 million—were rifle magazines that held 30 rounds or more.

From 1994 to 2004, large-capacity magazines — magazines holding 11 or more rounds — were prohibited under the Federal Assault Weapons Ban. Still, according to an NSSF spreadsheet that underpins the study, and was obtained through a public records request, production and distribution of these magazines, also known as LCMs, continued. This was due, at least in part, to loopholes and exemptions. During the ban, hundreds of thousands of pistol LCMs were produced and entered the market each year, as were millions of rifle magazines that held 30 rounds or more.

— Mike Spies in Newly Obtained Documents Show How Gun Manufacturers Swamped the Market With Large-Capacity Magazines