By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
A new video financed by ArmaLite and featuring an Indiana sheriff demolishes the hysteria about so-called “high-capacity” ammunition magazines and refutes the argument that banning such devices will prevent psychopaths from committing mass shootings.
Boone County Sheriff Ken Campbell, who sometimes serves as an instructor and range-master at the famed Gunsite Ranch in Arizona, supervised a demonstration in which two shooters demonstrated that multiple rounds could be fired accurately in less than 30 seconds even when using several magazines.
That video was obtained by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and has been released to wide distribution on the internet, via YouTube. CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb said the 14-minute video “throws cold water on anti-gunners who argue that magazine limitations are necessary to prevent mass shootings. We are all indebted to ArmaLite for this informative effort.”
Filmed in early February at the American Institute of Marksmanship near Cave City, KY, the video features a series of shooting exercises involving an experienced male shooter and novice female, Sheriff Campbell demonstrates that shooters using smaller capacity magazines can fire just as fast, and in some cases even faster despite having to reload, than if they were using a single large-capacity magazine.
In separate exercises, the male and female shooters fire strings of 30 shots with a Glock pistol, first using two 15-round magazines, then three 10-round magazines and finally five magazines each loaded with six cartridges. They are shooting at targets and the drills were designed to put hits on these targets to simulate how rapidly a person can change magazines and still hit multiple targets.
The man, identified as “Jim,” fired his first string with two 15-round magazines in 20.64 seconds, then with a trio of ten-round magazines in 18.05 seconds and finally with five six-round magazines in 21.45 seconds.
The woman, identified as “Christy,” fired the same sequence, with two 15-round magazines in 22.9 seconds, the three ten-round magazines in 25.51 seconds and the final five six-round magazines in 26.93 seconds.
All of these times included the magazine change, and all occurred in less time than transpired in the famous Gunfight at the OK Corral on Oct. 26, 1881 in Tombstone, Ariz.
In addition, “Jim” fired 20 rounds from an AR-15 rifle using a single magazine, in 12.16 seconds. He then fired 20 more shots using two ten-round magazines in less time, 10.73 seconds, proving that a magazine change will not slow down a killer.
Sheriff Campbell notes in the video that, “One of the reasons that the magazine restrictions are being proposed is the perception that if the active shooter has fewer bullets in magazines he will have to reload sooner and this will create an opportunity for someone to tackle him during the reload.”
But the video includes a demonstration that proves this to be a dangerous strategy. Both “Jim” and “Christy” fire a few rounds from the pistol and then change magazines. In those sequences, a man rushes toward them from a distance of about 25 feet, when they stop to reload. In neither instance does the man get near enough to disarm either shooter before they are reloaded and can fire again.
After viewing the video, Gottlieb noted that, “Imposing magazine capacity limits creates a horribly false sense of security. This video puts the lie to this politically-motivated disarmament strategy.
“Magazine capacity limits offer no panacea to the rare mass shootings that have alarmed the country,” he added. “It is time to stop this nonsense and expose magazine limits as the monumental fraud they are.”
Sheriff Campbell said the test was set up to “try to provide factual data…to make policy decisions.”
On screen, the sheriff appears in uniform, which he suggested would add “credibility” to the report and its neutral presentation.
“They said they want to do this and be non-partisan about it,” he explained, “and let the data speak for itself.”
