As a gun owner and a former member of the NRA I have arrived at the opinion that there should be

[Kaleva]

134. Maximum of 10-15 round magazines for handguns. Five ought to be the limit for long guns.

Extremely rare are the occurrences where a person expended numerous rounds in self defense or in defense of his/her home. From most of the stories I've read, just a few rounds were fired in such instances.


From the 1999 Firearms Fact Sheet

"* Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker."

http://gunowners.org/fs9901.htm

According to the above, in the vast majority of instances where a gun is drawn in self defense, a single bullet was adequate.

In the below where a NYPD study was discussed, it was found that officers fire an average of 8 shots in an encounter.

"The new "average" number of rounds fired is eight. Subsequent data may alter that number, but that is what we have now. What jumps out at me is that, after eight rounds are fired, the parties separate or accommodate to the point where additional shooting is not necessary, at least in the short term, even though the officer is fully capable of firing more rounds. NYPD shooting accuracy has improved steadily, but the average hit percentage is still below twenty, so, out of eight rounds fired, only one or two are likely to impact anywhere on the suspect. In most cases, hit or not, the suspect disengages and runs away. "

http://www.defense-training.com/quips/2000/20Dec00.html

Rule of fours;

Conflict resolution is within,

Four yards or less,

Four seconds or under,

four rounds or less.

I've been searching but have yet to find articles which tell of instances where a person drew a gun in self defense but was killed or wounded because he didn't have enough ammo but I have yet to find such.