The seven deadliest acts of intentional criminal violence on American soil since the 9/11 terrorist attacks were all mass shootings and all involved guns that held more than 10 rounds of ammunition, a researcher testified Tuesday for the state in its defense of Oregon’s gun control Measure 114.
From 1990 to 2022, every mass shooting in the United States that left 15 or more people dead involved large-capacity magazines, said Louis Klarevas, a political scientist and research professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York.
Klarevas urged the judge, lawyers and onlookers in the 13th-floor courtroom of U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut to consider what happens when someone firing a gun must pause to reload a magazine, typically about five seconds.
It gives potential victims a chance to run, escape or hide, he said. Smaller-capacity magazines would give people a better chance to survive shooters bent on targeting crowded places, said Klarevas, the author of “Rampage Nation,” a 2016 book about gun massacres in the U.S.
“Look around this room right now,” he said. “Ask yourself how fast you can get to one of the exits” as he counted the seconds on his fingers, reciting “1,001, 1,002, 1,003, 1,004, 1,005.”
“Could I have made it to that exit?” he asked, pointing to the door to the right of the witness stand. “I think so.”
Louis Klarevas is a research professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College in New York, and the author of Rampage Nation, a book about gun massacres in the United States. He testified for the state of Oregon Tues., June 6, 2023, in its defense of Oregon gun control Measure 114, which would ban the possession, sale or manufacture of large-capacity magazines.Court Exhibit
“If there’s a critical pause in the shooting,” Klarevas said, “that gives you an opportunity to try to flee the scene, take cover or confront the shooter.”
Klarevas’ testimony came on day two of what’s expected to be a five-day trial on the constitutionality of voter-approved Measure 114. The measure, which has been stalled by a state judge, would ban the sale, transfer and manufacture of magazines holding more than 10 rounds, require a permit to buy a gun and a completed criminal background check before any sale or transfer of a gun.
Klarevas noted that even during the 2021 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newton, Connecticut, nine first graders in one classroom were able to run out a door and two hid in a bathroom while the gunman reloaded.
“Those 11 kids survived because they were able to run,” he said.
The 20-year-old gunman shot and killed 26 people – 20 children between 6 and 7 and six adult staff members.
Klarevas also noted that congregants at the Chabad of Poway synagogue in a San Diego suburb in April 2019 chased a gunman after he emptied a 31-round magazine from an AR-15 rifle and before he could reload it. One person was killed and two others wounded in the shooting.
Though media reports claimed the gunman had a malfunctioning magazine, FBI reports revealed no malfunction during the active shooting, Klarevas said.
On cross-examination, attorney Stephen J. Joncus, representing gun rights supporters challenging the measure, asked Klarevas if the lower-capacity magazines would force a so-called “critical pause” for everybody – including people trying to defend themselves from an attack?
“Yes,” Klarevas responded.
The attorneys for the gun rights supporters rested their case in the morning after calling Damian Blunting, a private security guard and one of the named plaintiffs.
Bunting, wearing his security vest, described himself as an avid gun lover who carries a Glock 45 with a 17-round magazine and does security for Fred Meyer and other large retail stores.
He testified that he’s concerned Measure 114 has no “carve out” that would allow him to remain armed with a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds.
He’s blasted the regulations on his Twitter account and wrote “My baby #guns” beside a photo of his Mossburg shotgun in August 2022.
Salam Fatohi, director of research for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, also testified for the plaintiffs, saying the U.S. has produced about 160 million detachable magazines that have a capacity of more than 10 rounds from 1990 to 2018.
Lawyers for the state challenged the foundation’s figures as unreliable. Fatohi acknowledged during cross-examination that he didn’t create the report, that his predecessor at the foundation did. He testified, however, that the information came from both the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and from firearms manufacturers.
The shooting foundation, the Oregon Firearms Federation, Oregon State Shooting Association, several rural sheriffs and others have argued that what the state describes as large-capacity magazines are actually standard-capacity magazines in common use today and that many people have them for self-defense.
Lawyers for the state have argued it’s extremely rare for people to fire more than 10 rounds for self-defense.
Klarevas, the Columbia professor, examined high-fatality mass shootings – what he defines as involving six or more fatalities excluding the perpetrator — from 1776 through modern times. A graph he created showed a five-year gap in those shootings from 1994 to 1998 — coinciding with the federal ban on assault weapons.
“Never before and never again have there been five straight years without such a high-fatality mass shooting,” he testified.
The last two years have brought a significant jump in high-fatality mass shootings —
seven in both 2021 and 2022 – that indicates a growing problem, he said.
On cross-examination, Klarevas acknowledged he’s received about 50% of his income serving as an expert witness in gun regulation cases.
Lawyers for gun rights supporters pulled up an essay Klarevas wrote for The New Republic in January 2011, titled, “Closing the Gap.” He wrote that a person set on inflicting mass casualties will get around any clip-capacity restriction by carrying additional magazines or by having more than one fully loaded weapon.
Klarevas said he wrote that essay but believes differently now.
“My views have been informed by evidence. … My views changed after I started researching my book and realized those views were actually wrong,” he said.
He noted, however, that he still agrees with the final paragraph of the 2011 essay: “To be sure, this doesn’t mean better legislation shouldn’t be enacted in order to place as many obstacles as possible in the way of would-be criminals.”
Michael Siegal, a doctor and public health professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, testified later Tuesday that studies show state bans on large-capacity magazines have reduced the incidence and severity of injuries in mass shootings.
Siegal, however, said he doesn’t believe bans on assault weapons have the same impact.
Plaintiffs’ attorney Daniel Nichols asked if it’s true that Siegal believes a ban on large-capacity magazines wouldn’t reduce crime more generally.
“That’s absolutely correct,” Siegal said.
The state also called Mackenzie Cook, a trauma surgeon at OHSU Hospital, who testified that the risk of death or serious harm increases with each bullet wound sustained by a gunshot patient.
Cook said he chose to testify without being paid.
“Fewer people should be shot,” he said. “There needs to be fewer bullet holes in America.”
He added that he’s a parent of a kindergartner and second grader and that guns are the No. 1 cause of death among children in the United States.
“That makes me sick,” Cook said, “every single day.”
— Maxine Bernstein
Email mbernstein@oregonian.com; 503-221-8212
Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian
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