Smyth Busters: What's Really a "High-Capacity" Magazine?
2,834If there's one thing that really grinds Caleb's gears, it's careless definitions. Today's myth is the notion that some arbitrary number of rounds determines a "high-capacity" magazine. The media constantly call a 30-round magazine a high-capacity magazine. Steve points out that 30 rounds is not exactly low capacity. But in the AR-15 world, 30-rounds is the STANDARD magazine capacity. Most new AR-15s come with a 30-round mag. Caleb got out his dictionary and points out that "standard" is defined as "used or accepted as average." Nowadays, 30 rounds is pretty average and standard for AR-15 mags - unless you are unfortunate enough to live in one of the magazine-capacity restricting states. Back in the 1960s, early AR-15 mags held 20 rounds, but 30 has been standard for decades.
Another example: a full-size Smith & Wesson M&P chambered in 9mm Luger normally comes with a 17-round magazine. To sell M&Ps in states that prohibit "high-capacity" magazines, S&W has to manufacture special 10-round M&P magazines. So that special 10-round mag is the exception from the standard M&P magazine. The "high-capacity" magazine bans that force this change are, in reality, banning the M&P's standard-capacity magazine!
So the myth that you can call a particular magazine capacity "high" is BUSTED. Standard capacity is firearm specific. It has nothing to do with an arbitrary round count. A standard AR-15 magazine is not a high-capacity magazine. A little firearms knowledge could go a long way to help some folks understand firearms, concludes Uncle Steve.
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