How many mags?

I see this question all the time on different gun forums. How many mags should I own for each gun? Well, there is no right answer to this question to be honest. However, that has never stopped me from answering it. The honest answer is that it depends on the gun, how often you shoot and how much you can afford to spend. However, I do think that there are some good guidelines to follow.

First, I think if you ask someone who lived through the 10 dark years of the '94 Assault Weapons Ban this question you will get a VERY different answer than if you ask someone who was either too young to remember or wasn't into firearms at the time. Those of us that remember having our rights stripped away are much more wary of it happening again. Those of us that remember gun show vendors charging $100 for a Glock magazine will think we need more than someone who did not go through that. As of right now, the momentum toward passing a new AWB seems to have dwindled, but that does not mean we should let our guard down. Personally, I prefer to have too many mags so that if that day ever comes again, I won't have to pay the gouger prices as my old mags wear out.

Ok, now to the original question. Let's break it down into types of guns.

Type 1 - Plinkers and Range Toys. By this, I mean a gun that was bought just for the fun of shooting it. It is not intended to be used in a self defense role. It won't be lying on your nightsand ready to defend the home and it won't be carried concealed. For most people, this would include a lot of .22's.

For these guns, it is not as important in my opinion to have a lot of mags. If you shoot the gun often, get more mags since it will make range sessions more fun. If it sits in the safe and looks good, get a few and be done. For me, it depends on how often I shoot the gun, how hard it is to reload and how expensive the mags are for it. I always like to have at least a couple of spares so I'd say minimum of 3, but more if you shoot the gun often.

Type 2 - Self Defense Handguns. My hard and fast rule is a bare minimum of 5 mags for any gun that could be used for self defense. My one exception to that is my Ruger LCP. The reason is that the gun is unpleasant to shoot often and is not built to be shot a lot. I have 4 mags for that gun and I doubt I'll ever put more than that through the gun in a single range session now that the gun is broken in. For all others, at least 5 but I prefer 8.

Type 3 - Self Defense Rifles. This would be a gun like an AR-15 that could be used for home defense or to hold of the hoardes of zombies. I like to have a minimum of 15 mags per rifle. More is always better. If you have an AR-15, more is definitely better. There are a lot of other semi-auto rifles out there than use AR-15 mags so having a good supply of those is a definite plus. I know of people that have 400 or more AR-15 mags. I don't go that far, but I like to have a good supply of them. They do wear out and you never know if you will be able to replace them.

To summarize, the important thing to remember is that you never know when legislation or supply will make it difficult or impossible to replace mags as they wear out. Without them, your guns are single shot devices or paper weights if the have a mag safety. Buy as many as you think you are likely to ever need, now.