![]() ![]() Lewis took aim at a nearby target and fired, emptying the magazine in nine seconds. And not having to reload so much, he said, “saves your thumbs.” “It’s fun,” Lewis, 39, said shortly before sliding a 40-round device into a Ruger AR-556. Paul Lewis, who owns a property management company in Maryland, extolled the virtues of firing dozens of rounds at a time during a recent visit to a gun range north of Dulles International Airport. One company, Magpul, boasts a 60-round drum that it calls “the best high capacity drum in the world.” Sig Sauer touts one with 30 rounds of 9mm ammunition by promising that it will let users “spend less time loading magazines and more time shooting at the range.” They are advertised as easy to use and deeply convenient for gun owners. Now, in a country with an estimated 400 million guns, there are also millions of magazines with at least 30 rounds, according to gun rights groups and court filings. When the weapons ban expired in 2004, that restriction also lifted. So when Congress passed the federal assault weapons ban in 1994, it also prohibited magazines with more than 10 rounds. Over time, technological advances made it easier to produce them reliably and affordably out of plastic. The first civilian AR-15 rifle debuted in 1964 with a device that held five rounds, and during the Vietnam War era, the military relied on those with 20 rounds. ![]() They emerged as popular accessories only in recent decades. Magazines with 20 or more bullets have been around in some form at least since the 1800s. Something, they say, has to be done in the face of all the bloodshed - and they reject the notion that larger devices are protected by the Constitution. Proponents of the restrictions say the value of the limits comes down to numbers: Fewer bullets fired means more lives could be saved. “We think the Second Amendment wins on this every time now.” “It’s a different era,” said Dudley Brown, president of the National Association for Gun Rights, a pro-firearms organization mounting several legal challenges to magazine restrictions. The court’s ruling last year overturning a New York gun law has inspired a new wave of lawsuits by firearms advocates, who argue that magazine restrictions are unconstitutional and endanger law-abiding citizens who could need them for self-defense. Such efforts, however, face growing legal challenges from gun rights advocates - and the issue could ultimately wind up with the Supreme Court ruling on a pivotal question: whether the right to bear arms extends to these ammunition magazines. Pritzker (D) signed a bill in January that included a ban on the sale of long-gun magazines with more than 10 rounds. But within the past year, lawmakers in four states have added restrictions capping magazine sizes at anywhere from 10 to 17 rounds - and Oregon voters in November approved a 10-round limit. The gunman, shooting an AR-15-style weapon, had fired off 41 bullets, hitting more than two dozen people and killing nine of them - including Derrick Fudge, Green’s father. Thirty-two seconds after that first shot, the barrage ended when police killed the gunman. ![]() Because why was there a full-on war going on in the middle of the street?” People ran from the carnage, diving behind parked cars and scrambling into nearby bars and clubs, piling on top of one another as they huddled on the floor. All around Green, bullets ripped into people’s heads, chests, backs, arms and legs. Green barely had time to drop down as the masked shooter ran by and kept firing. It had been a routine Saturday night: people dancing, drinking, standing in line to get into a bar, waiting for tacos outside. In just half a minute, more than three dozen gunshots echoed through the crowded streets.ĭion Green recalls hitting the sidewalk next to his father and fiancee, who had come out with him in August 2019. They kept coming, again and again, each shot thundering across downtown Dayton, Ohio. The first gunshot cracked through the air just after 1 a.m. For this reason, we refer to the rifle broadly as the AR-15 in this series. While Colt still holds the trademark, “AR-15” has become a ubiquitous term for a popular style of gas-operated, magazine-fed semiautomatic rifles. The patent expired, leaving many companies to produce their own weapons, commonly called AR-style rifles. Colt acquired the AR-15 patent and trademark from Armalite in 1959. ![]()
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