"We're determined to ban high-capacity gun magazines like the one Jared Lee Loughner allegedly used in Tucson, Arizona, when he was able to fire 31 bullets in 15 seconds because he supersized his Glock 19 handgun with a high-capacity magazine.
Loughner's massacre ended only when he stopped to reload and bystanders wrestled him to the ground. If he had used a standard magazine and was forced to reload earlier, some of his victims might have been spared.
High-capacity magazines -- devices that dramatically boost a weapon's firing power -- were prohibited from 1994 until 2004, when the federal assault weapons ban was in place. Since its lapse, high-capacity magazines have become easily accessible, turning up on shelves in gun shops and even some sporting goods stores.
As a recent investigation revealed, during the last year of the ban in 2004, just 10 percent of the crime-related guns seized by Virginia police were equipped with high-capacity magazines, a 10-year low. By last year, with the ban expired, the percentage had surged to 22 percent.
The fact is, guns are used to murder more than 9,500 people in our country in a single year. By comparison, about 5,900 American troops have died in Afghanistan and Iraq during the past 10 years."
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