Lindsey Graham On Gun Violence: High-Capacity Magazines Needed To Protect Families

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) argued at the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on gun control Wednesday that high-capacity magazines are needed to protect families.

His reasoning? Without them, mothers responding to home intruders might run out of bullets.

"Would I be a reasonable American to want my family to have the 15-round magazine in a semi-automatic weapon, to make sure, if there's two intruders, she doesn't run out of bullets?" he asked. "Am I an unreasonable person for saying that in that situation, the 15-round magazine makes sense?"

"A Killing Machine": Half of All Mass Shooters Used High-Capacity Magazines

As lawmakers across the country and in the nation's capital debate possible restrictions on high-capacity magazines, one question emerges: Are these ammunition-feeding devices, which allow a shooter to fire many times without reloading, in fact commonly used by mass killers? We examined the data from Mother Jones' continuing investigation into mass shootings and found that high-capacity magazines have been used in at least 31 of the 62 cases we analyzed. A half-dozen of these crimes occurred in the last two years alone. (With some of the cases we studied, it remains unclear whether high-capacity magazines were used; for more details, jump to our data set below.)