Judge allows Sunnyvale ban on large-capacity gun magazines

[Newsjock]

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

A federal judge on Wednesday allowed Sunnyvale to enforce a voter-approved ban on large-capacity gun magazines, saying it would have little impact on the constitutional right to possess firearms for self-defense. The ruling comes two weeks after another judge rejected gun advocates' attempt to block a similar law in San Francisco.

Although millions of Americans own guns with magazines carrying more than 10 cartridges, "it is rare that anyone will need to fire more than 10 rounds in self-defense," U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte of San Jose said in his ruling denying an injunction against the Sunnyvale ordinance, which is scheduled to take effect Thursday.

He cited a National Rifle Association report that found Americans who used their firearms to defend themselves fired an average of 2.1-2.2 shots.

Although opponents of the ordinance offered several anecdotes of residents who needed high-capacity weapons to protect themselves, Whyte said the "burden on Second Amendment rights ... is relatively light" and was far outweighed by the "compelling government interest in public safety" that the new law promotes.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Judge-allows-Sunnyvale-ban-on-large-capacity-gun-5291401.php

[Travis_0004]

1. If this is a good law, then it should apply to the police as well.

[happyslug]

9. For decades it was, for the simple reason Police for decades like Revolvers.

Police, till the 1980s, preferred revolvers to automatics. The reason for this was simple, most gun fights involve less then three shots, thus a six shot revolver was good enough.

Revolvers have several advantages over automatics

1. Revolvers are also less picky when in comes to ammunition. Many police forces liked this option for they often purchased their ammunition by the lowest bid, and often the "New" Bullets were slightly different then the older "bullets". In a revolver this difference did not matter, but in most automatics it did, if the round was just a little bit off standard, it would jam an automatic, but would work fine in a Revolver.

2. Related to this was the ability to mix rounds (and many officers did, 38 specials for the first three or four bullets and if they needed two to three 357 magnum rounds.

3. Another advantage is if the round the hammer fell ob was bad (rare but it does occur), if you are using an automatic you MUST manually work the action to get a new round in the Chamber. In a revolver all you had to do is pull the trigger and the weapon itself would put a new round under the hammer.

4. Revolvers with roll out cylinders (and that is most revolvers) or tip actions (most other revolvers) could be seen in an instance that they are unloaded. In an automatic to unload it is a two step process, first remove the magazine then work the action to remove the round in the chamber. There are many stores of police officers (and others) who did this wrong, most often by working the chamber and then removing the magazine. This would leave a live round in the Chamber. In theory when the weapon failed to stay open when you work the action, that should have reminded the operator that a round was still in the weapon, but most operators automatically worked the hold open to close the action that they did not realize the weapon was still loaded, till someone or something operated the trigger.

5. Most revolvers were double actions in that the pull of the trigger had to do two things, first move the cylinder to put a fresh round under the hammer and the cock and fire the hammer. This made the trigger pull substantial, thus accident firing were rare (and if done, someone had to explain why they pulled that trigger).

Thus for decades Police in the US used revolvers. When police forces started to convert to automatics in the 1980s, about 12% of police officers retain revolvers for the above five reasons.

Automatics are more picky as to ammunition (It was hard to find an automatic prior to the 1970s that could operate with soft point, for most automatics were designed for the military and the Military wanted their weapons to work best with Full Metal Jacket Bullets). This problems with ammunition ended in the 1970s as gun makers made an effort to get automatics to work with soft points and started to make automatics geared to fire soft points as oppose to full metal jacket bullets. Automatics are still more picky about ammunition then revolvers, but ammunition makers, today, tend to be better at maintaining quality between batches of rounds made.

Automatics prior to the Austrian Glock, had two types of Triggers. Single action that required just a slight pull on the trigger to fire the round, but the weapon had to be cocked to fire (if not cocked, then the operator had to operate the action to cock the action). The other type was double action like a revolver, but only for the first shot. After the First shot these double action automatics reverted to single action. The Classic single action automatics was the 1911 Colt. The classic double action was the Walther P-38 of WWII fame.

In the 1980s US Police forces decided they were "Outgunned" and a move was made to go to Automatics for their increase fire power, both in terms of what an automatic could carry (Depending on the model 7 to 18 rounds) but the faster speed it is to reload automatics (hit magazine release, old magazine drops out, load new magazine).

It is often reported that the 1986 FBI Shoot out was the start of this shift, but in that shootout three of the eight agents had automatics. The take down was almost flawless, the FBI pinned the suspect cars, between one of their cars and a parked car so the doors could not open. The shooters thus had to climb out of the car's windows. This provided perfect targets for the agents. The driver was knocked out for most of the fight, when he tried to pull his shotgun out and was rammed to the rear by another FBI car.

The problem was at that point, it became a wounded robber with a RIFLE against 8 FBI agents with pistols. It is debatable if the driver, who did get some rounds off, hit anyone, but it is clear the robber with the rifle was hitting everyone. At the end of the gun fight, both robbers were dead, but so was two FBI agents and another Five wounded in an area of roughy four gun widths by one car length.

The problem with that shoot out was the FBI agents, assumed that once they push the car off the street, the robbers would surrender. The problem was they came out shooting, and the FBI agents who had the weapons to engage these robbers were elsewhere (FBI agents with M16s were attached to the team, but they were elsewhere and did not appear till after the shoot out was over).

http://americanhandgunner.com/25-years-after-the-fbi-firefight-the-late-emerging/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout

There is an old rule, do NOT make general rules based on exceptions. The Miami shootout was an exception to the general rule, but it was the shootout people talked about. Furthermore, the gun makers started to talk about this case, and other similar exceptions and ignore what happens in 99% of the shootouts. The Federal Government wanted to "help" police departments, but in ways that did not require funding every year (even Clinton 100,000 addition Police Officer program was a grant for only a certain number of years, then the municipalities that hired those officers had to retain them for many years afterward, or return all of the money. I know of one community that took up Clinton's offer, but then had problem maintaining the increase police force, and was force to disband its entire police force to come up with the money to pay back the Federal Government, once they realized they could NOT keep the new officers).

Thus the Federal Government would pay for new equipment but not for more officers in the 1980s (Clinton's program in the 1990s addressed this problem, but in a way that only helped areas with expanding population and tax base). This increase in funding help many a police force replace its revolvers with Automatics. States and even local government did the same, new pistols was something that they knew would NOT require new taxes in subsequent years.

Thus the US switched from Revolvers to Automatics. Thus the US went from a country where 99% of the Police carried a revolvers that was good enough 99% of the time, to a Police Force with Automatics, geared for that 1% of shoot outs, that the Police officer is better off staying out of unless he opts for a Rifle or a Shotgun,

Sorry, for most police work a Revolver is not only good enough, its good points makes it a better all around choice. If police need to get into a fire fight, they should do so with care. Remember every round fired down range is the responsibility of the shooter, do you want your local police shooting 15-30 rounds in a middle of a crowded street? If an officer needs that much fire power, he is better off withdrawing from the fight and waiting for back up (or getting a rifle from the trunk of his car, the rifle is not only more powerful, but more accurate).

Thus, six rounds is good enough for Police, was good enough for decades and except in fire fights police should back away from and wait for back up, good enough for today.

[upaloopa]

2. My magazines in Vietnam for my M-14 held 20 rounds.

Of course gunners back home need a lot more rounds in their magazines since they live in more dangerous surroundings.

[Bandit]

14. M-14, you must have been a marine.

We had M-16s and they were so prone to jamming that we could not use a full magazine. We loaded no more than eighteen rounds or risk jamming.

[happyslug]

16. I read an article about the M16 magazine

The article was from a writer who preferred the AK series of weapons to the AR serious of weapons (the AR series includes the M-16), but then pointed out the M-16 magazine were quicker and easier to load into the magazine well as opposed to the AK-47.

I carried an M-16 when I was in the National Guard and the magazines were quick to load for all you had to do was push it up into the magazine well and it would click right in. Thus it was held by ONE point, where the magazine release button was.

The AK series has to be loaded to the front of the well FIRST to catch the front of the magazine into the magazine well, and then the back is pushed into the rest of the well. Thus loading the AK is harder then loading the M-16, but it is a more firm hold of the magazine by the weapon. Thus TWO point hold on the magazine not only mean it is more solid, it also means it stays more solid as the magazine is used over and over again.

The difference in HOW the magazine is loaded is the main reason why 100 round magazines work very well in AK series of weapons, but terrible in AR series of weapons. When I was in the National Guard (the 1980s) we had nothing but 30 round Aluminum magazines for our M-16s. In Vietnam they had been steel. The switch to 30 round magazine required the conversion to aluminium. The reason for this was simple, aluminum is lighter AND stronger then steel. Aluminum on a per MASS basis is four times as strong as the same amount of steel, the downside is aluminum has three times the VOLUME of Steel. Thus one pound of aluminum will be three time the size as one pound of steel. In a magazine, this permitted lighter magazines and thus less stress on the mechanism to hold the magazine in the Magazine well.

If you looked at the Magazines, one steel and one aluminum, they would look about the same, you notice the difference when you picked them up.

Another advantage of Aluminum is its "Stress" point, where use time after time leads to a break, is much higher then Steel. Better for magazines, Steel will slowly deteriorate in its ability to hold, aluminum will just break when its stress point is reached. Thus a Steel Magazine can be used long after an aluminum magazine has broken, but the steel in the magazine will still be fatigued and not hold any need what it did when new (and no where near what the aluminum magazine was holding just before it broke).

Thus that you loaded you magazines with only 18 or less rounds to prevent jamming is no surprise to me. Those older Steel Magazines had a reputation. The aluminum magazines I used was NOT that much better, but technically better, good enough to hold 30 rounds (but not more, the various 40 plus round magazines for the M-16 had terrible failure records, unlike the AK Series).

Side Note: The Israeli Defense Force adopted the Galil Rifle in 1972. It was an AK-47 clone, but designed to use 5.56x45mm Ammunition, but traditional AK magazines. It has a very good reputation in Central America and Columbia, preferred to the M-16 and the AK-47. THE IDF itself only issues the Galil to its Tanks and Artillery units (for it had a folding stock, something you can NOT do with an M-16, but also these machines turn up a lot of dust and the AK handles dust better then the AR). The Infantry uses American made M-16s (And most Israeli infrantty is now mechanized, thus they travel in machines that tear up a lot of dust but being transported they have time to keep their M-16 clean). Various reasons are given for this, but most explanations ignored the fact that starting in the 1970s the US started to give away M-16s for it had produced more then enough after Vietnam to replace all of its own M-1s and M-14s but also wanted to retain the ability to make a lot of M-16s if needed in the future. i.e. the US was giving them away to keep the production lines open (The US did not want another situation like 1966-1968m with the need to replace a weapon but no weapon to replace it with). Israel were an major recipient of these "surplus" M-16s. The US then purchased most of the Galil rifles for use in Central American and Columbia. Now, while the most guerrillas preferred the GALIl, FARC, the main guerrillas force in Columbia prefers the AK-47.

Notice the Galil used AK type magazine not AR magazines even through the Galil was firing M-16 ammunition.

Just a comment that the AR series of weapons (which includes the M-16) has always had restrictions as to how many rounds its magazines can hold, but that is the cost of having the fastest magazines to load and in many fire fights it is the ability to RELOAD that is more important then how many rounds you have in each magazine.

[Bandit]

18. Myself having used both the M-16 and the AK-47, I find the AK to be a far superior weapon.

It is far simpler to dismantle and reassemble and IMO shoots much straighter. The M-16 bullet when leaving the barrel has a tendency to rise, thus at fifty yards it will hit quite a bit higher than the aiming point. By a hundred yards it is more accurate, but at one fifty it drops dramatically. The AK up to two hundred yards fires flat and accurate. Once you get the knack of loading the magazine it is actually even faster than the M-16 even though like you said it is a two part loading procedure. Also the AK has twice the knock down power since it is a much larger bullet. The M-16 is a much faster bullet but doesn't really seem to convert that energy very well. The M-16 was designed to wound while the AK was designed to kill. Someone in our MIC got the idea that a wounded soldier takes four people off the battlefield whilr the dead soldier only takes the one soldier off the field. They designed the fragmentation grenade with the same principle, when the eliminated the old pineapple grenade,

[happyslug]

15. Yes, they are finally replacing the M14

The M14 is still in service and being used in Afghanistan. It is to be replaced by the M110 but that is an ongoing project of which I talk more about below.

The last M14 was made in 1964, then the US closed down the Springfield Armory and decided it was going to buy its weapons from gun makers, instead of doing what the US had done since the 1790s, make its own.

Now, The Soviet Army after WWII developed the concept of a platoon level full caliber rifle to be used for long distance shooting. Thus in the 1950s, you had platoons with SKSs, RPG-2s and RPDs but one bolt action rifle in 7.62x54R was retained for long range firing.

In 1959, the above was replaced by the AKM-47, the RPK-47 (the Squad Automatic weapon version of the AK), the RPG-7 and in the late 1960s. the SVD, which was a scoped rifle based on the AK action but firing full powered 7.62x54R ammunition.

The SVD was always looked down on in the west, for it was clearly inferior to the sniper rifles of the west. When it came to Afghanistan, this attitude continued, till it was observed HOW the SVD was used. During Desert Storm, most of the fighting was so one sided, what the Iraqis did became unimportant, but in the weeks up to that fight the US came into contact with Iraqi forces trained to use Soviet weapons including the SVD.

What the US found was the USE of SVD was NOT as a sniper rifle in the western concept of sniper rifle, that role was played by better quality weapons in the Soviet Arsenal (mostly upgraded SVDs, but some bolt action rifles were also used). The SVD was to be used, like the M14 had been used in US Army and Marine units in the later years of the Vietnam war, as marksmen's rifle tied in with the Platoon or even squad. Not as semi-independent sniper teams.

This concept was revived in the US Airborne units that hit Iraq in 2002 and in Marines units. Most soldiers and Marines had M16 rifles (or it derivative the M4 Carbine) but many squads and platoons were issued M14s to provide long range power if it was needed. This concept took hold and continues in both services, through the exact rifle to provide this long range fire power differ. Thus was "Born" the concept of the Designated Marksman Rifle:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Designated_marksman_rifle

The Marines and Army went with the M14 as its Designated Marksmen Rifle, but both services given the age of the M14s in service looked for a replacement. The problem was, while the M14 action had been copied after the closing of Springfield Armory, most makers went to cast receivers in place of the machine receivers of the original M14. The cast receivers could provide the accuracy of the M14, but not the long life of the original machined receivers.

Thus both the Army and Marines decided to go with the AR-10/AR-15/M-16/M-4 type action. This lead to the M 110, but was found to be inferior to upgraded M14 known to Marines as the Mk -14 EBR

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mk_14_EBR

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M39_Enhanced_Marksman_Rifle

Side note: While the US Marines seems to have wanted a 7.61x51mm Designated Marksmen rifle from day one, the Army, at first, wanted to upgrade the M16 to perform that function and retain the use of 5.56,45 mm round. While the 5.56x45 mm designated marksmen rifle was introduced it appears to have been unpopular with the troops. It did not have the range of the M14, but was as heavy as one. The idea of a 5/56x45mm Designated Marksmen Rifle seems to have been quietly dropped by the US Army, which has turned to the M110 in 7.62x51mm NATO.

While the US Army denies it, the replacement for the M14s, the M110, was found to need more repairs in the field then the older systems it was replacing (This is typical of the AR series, the AR series is the LIGHTEST Effective Combat rifle in what ever caliber you want the weapon to be in, but at the cost of being more fragile and less durable). The Army denied the M110 was having problems, but that they wanted to upgrade it anyway:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M110_Semi-Automatic_Sniper_System

All rifles are compromises. The AK series emphasis reliability and fire power, at the cost of being the HEAVEST effective Combat Rifle in what ever caliber you want it to be in. The M1 series (which includes the M14) is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. M1s and M14s are heavier, more durable and reliable then the AR series of rifles, the AK series of rifles tend to be heaver, more durable and reliable then the M1/M14 series of rifles.

All are good weapons. If you hear someone say one is better then another it is more a product of prejudice then reality. The M-16 had a problem in Vietnam, for it was adopted in many ways so the Kennedy Administration could close down Springfield Armory, The Air Force had adopted the M16 in 1958 to replace M1 Carbines used by Air Force Base Guards. The M-16 had been shipped to Vietnam starting in 1959 as a light weight weapon for their army, for most Vietnamese soldiers were smaller and lighter then the typical American Soldier.

The problem was neither of these two uses, put the M-16 into swamps. The Air Force keep their M16s clean by using only around their bases (so they could be clean daily). The Vietnamese Army of the late 1950s went by road from their bases to engage any Viet Cong activity they learned of. After the battle they went home (if they survived, the Viet Cong had a habit of only being found out when they wanted to be found out, so they could ambush any South Vietnamese force that reacted to whatever the Viet Cong was doing).

Thus the US Army went into Vietnam with the M-14, but during a period when production of the M-14 had been halted for the M-14 was to be replaced by the M-16. The M-16 had been adopted by the Army without first going through normal army testing (which the people in the Pentagon thought would be used by the Army to sink the M-16 project, which the Army had done throughout the 1950s when it came to the whole 5.65x45 mm project). Do to this lack of going through the US Army adoption procedure, the M-16 was issued to troops without parkerized chambers.

Parkerized chambers are used in most Automatic weapons (they had been standard on the AK series since it was first made in 1947) as a way to decrease the chances of rounds being stuck in the chamber after extensive firing. Eugene Stoner, who had designed the AR series of weapons had never Parkerized the chambers, but for his demonstration of the weapon it was NOT needed. Thus the M-16 was adopted without Parkeriztion (the M-1/M-14 series of weapons had had Parkerized chambers). As long as the troops could keep the Rifle clean, and kept the total number of rounds fired between cleanings down (as you would in Barracks) this lack of Parkerizetion was NOT a problem. The problem was the US Military decided to send troops into the jungle to go after the Viet Cong. Here the ability to keep round fired DOWN and to keep the M-16 clean declined rapidly, and you had the problem with the M-16 jamming.

Now, the US Military quickly learn what the problem was, but the solution was to STOP production of the only weapon the US had in production (the M-16), change the barrels used in the M-16 to include Parkeriztion and then to pull back all of the M-16 from Vietnam that had been shipped and give them the new barrals with parkerized chambers. This is 1968 Russia had moved into Czechoslovakia, thus you had increased tension in Europe. Given that Europe was in the process of converting to 7.62x51mm NATO weapons, it was decided by the Military they could NOT pull back all of the M-14s the US had in Europe. The Army could pull back the M-14s used in basic training at that time, but that was NOT enough to arm the troops in Vietnam. Thus the US Army had to look to its third level of replacement Rifles, the M-1 in 30'06.

Thus the only possible replacement for the M-16s in Vietnam was the M-1. The Pentagon did not want to admit it had screwed up so badly by closing the Springfield Armory, did not want to take the M14s from Europe and send them to Vietnam (to be replaced by M1 Rifles) or send M-1 Rifles to Vietnam. Thus the Pentagon was facing three bad choices and decided to cover it up by lying.

The lie was that change of ammunition was the cause of the Jamming M-16 and that no cleaning kit had come with the M-16 on the grounds it was "self cleaning". Both had some truth to them, the problem was the change in ammunition was at best a minor improvement, and clean kits for even the M-1 rifle could be used in the M-16, its bore was NOT that much smaller and the problem with keeping the M-16 clean was NOT in its bore, but elsewhere (including the much larger chamber) and M-1 and M-14 cleaning equipment could clean such places.

Now, from 1967 onward (when the problem became so bad the Pentagon could no longer cover it up) the US Military looked for new makers of M-16s so they could replace the M-16s made between 1964 and 1968 and the remaining M-1s in the US forces (And put the M-14 in a substitute standard category, where it stayed till the 1990s when the designated marksmen concept mentioned above started to be implemented).

I went into the above, to show the AR series of weapons, while staring out with a bad reputation in Vietnam, had become a very reliable system. Is the M-16 a M-14? NO, the M-16 can provide more effective fire power out to about 400 yards. The M-14 has an effective range out to 1000 yards, but with less "Fire power" i.e. less rounds down range. This has to do with the CALIBER of each weapon, the M-16 uses the much weaker (and thus easier to control) 5.56x45 mm round, the M-14 used the much more powerful (but harder to control), 7.62x51mm round.

When you compare the AR-110, AR-10 and the M-14 (All three in 7.62x51 mm NATO Ammunition) the ARs are lighter, have an straight in line stock that reduces felt recoil, a bolt and recoil reducer to that bolt that also reduces felt recoil, lighter plastic stocks for light weight. The M-14 had a wood (and later a lighter Fiberglass) stock, but the stock in "conventional" in that it is designed to get your eye as close to the top of the barrel for closest eye contact with the barrel and greatest possible accuracy with conventional sights.

The AK series of weapons uses an in line stock like the M-16 but in a heavier wooden stock (sometimes plastic) but no recoil reducer in its stock, so a traditional folding stock can be put on an AK series of weapons (do to its recoil reducer such a folding stock is NOT possible on an AR series of weapons, thus the various "Collapsible" stocks invented for the AR series of weapons.

One advantage of the present generation of AR weapons is that starting in the 1980s, people started to look at how to "Improve" the M-16. This started out with improved sights in the 1980s, but with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, and the move to much smaller armies since 1989, you have seen a tendency to be able to attach more things to AR series of weapons. The AK did not have this push, for with the collapse of the Soviet Union, most AK operators were trying to stay independent in a world without the Soviet Union. Thus the AK did not get the support the AR series received for various add ons in the 1990s. Since 2000 this has changed, I have seen more and more such add ons for AK series of weapons, including the M1913 Accessory system, first developed for the AR series of weapons in the 1990s:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picatinny_rail

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Accessory_Rail

The first time such a common way to attach accessories (including sights, both conventional and telescopic) was in 1994, and it took off after that date as a way to "improve" the AR-15/M16/M4 and other systems that adopted the common rail system. This common rail system was all the rage in the late 1990s and used to show how the AR system was superior to the AK series of weapons. To a degree that was true, till you started to see AK series of weapons modified to use the same rail system and thus the same equipment.

Sorry, about go off on a tangent, but why the M-16 replaced the M-14, but in some ways did not can lead to other issues when it comes to weapons. People have been saying for years one system is better then another, but often the proof is 50 years old weapons against brand new weapons in a test set up to maximize the advantages of the newer system to show how much better it is (This happened in the 1980s when the US Army looked for a Replacement for the M1911, in the tests that lead to the adoption of the M-9 Pistol, various newly made pistols were tested against M-1911 made before 1945 that had been rebuilt by the US Army at least three times since 1945. Thus the M-1911 was deemed NOT to be as good as its newer proposed replacements, for it could NOT fire more then 7 rounds without reloading and could NOT be operated in a double action mode, for the M-1911 had always been a single action semi-automatic).

Sometimes such test fails. In the 1980s, the US Army looked for a replacement for the M-60 Machine gun. It tested the M-60 against German Made M-3 (also called M-42) and Belgium made MAG machine guns. As a control a Russian PK machine gun tested with the other four (Where the US obtained the PK is unknown, but it had clearly been used in combat thus it was a heavily used Machine Gun against two brand new built machine guns).. As expected the M-60 quickly failed (the M-60, while NOT the worse design for a machine gun, was the worse POST WWII Design). That left the M-3, the MAG and the PK. Half way through the test the PK developed a crack in its receiver, but it was determined that would have no affect on its firing so the test continued. All three machine guns pasted the test. Reading between the lines you can almost hear the shock that the Russia PK had done so well.

I bring these two weapons up to show that just because one weapon replaces another, does not mean the replacement was better then what it replaced. Sometime that is true, sometimes it is not, sometime it depends on WHY the replacement occurred (The greater range of the 7.62x51 mm NATO round was found NOT to be needed on the modern battle field, as much as the greater fire power provided by the 5.56x45 mm Round).

Thus these three weapons have faced off each other since WWII and all have done what was expected of them. Like the M-3, MAG and PK machine guns, all are reliable weapons that do they job very well.

[sir pball]

17. So at what point does an AR-pattern stop being an "assault weapon"?

Since you're (IMO) wildly offtopic I'll follow, since you quite interesting spiel does involve me.

When I went shopping for a .308 deer rifle, I wanted something rugged, reliable, and above all accurate (I'm a decent shot). I went looking for a Remington 700 of course...but found something as good for a much better price: an Armalite AR-10(T), one of the losing competitors for the 110 project. It is a semiauto pistol grip but utterly useless for a mass shooting - it's so heavy and long it literally can't be shot offhand (standing up), it must be fired lying down or on a bench. And it's so precisely machined that constant fire of more than a dozen rounds or so makes it jam in a non-fixable way. Let the breech lugs cool and shrink. But...pistol grip and mag! Assault weapon!

Let alone my Marlin lever-action 45-70 is one of the best CQB rifles I've ever held, and we won't even talk about box magazine conversions for shotguns..

[AtheistCrusader]

3. Mixed opinion.

I believe they have the right to ban the sale of new ones, in fact the federal government did for a period of 10 years, but banning existing items in possession of lawful owners...

Problematic.

[warrant46]

4. In the meantime Magpul Industries has made millions of magazines

Magpul Industries Corporation is an American designer and manufacturer of polymer and composite high-tech firearms, accessories and concept firearms. The company is based in Erie, Colorado in the United States (though they mark all products with "Made in Boulder, CO

On 2 January 2014, Magpul announced that it was moving its production, distribution and shipping operations to Cheyenne, Wyoming and its head office to an undetermined location in Texas.

[AtheistCrusader]

5. And there are millions in circulation.

Magpul mags suck though. Their plastic shit doesn't fit in my Olympic arms AR. Real, metal mags fit fine.

[Travis_0004]

10. That sounds like a problem with your Olympic Arms AR.

Olympic arms is known for having tight tolerences, and not always being mil-spec. Its not Magpuls problem if the mag doesn't fit when it fits in 99% of other AR-15's.

[AtheistCrusader]

11. Yet, proper, metal mil-spec mags fit just fine and dandy.

[proudretiredvet]

6. I do not agree with the mag limit bans.

But it is really a mute point. I shoot combat comp with pistols. The people who ban the high capacity magazines have no clue how fast we change mags and resume firing. I'm talking about three mags, 30 rounds fired in way less than 10 seconds, all on target.
This may make them feel better but has almost zero effect on what a trained person with a pistol can do.
Learning about guns from hollywood movies seems to be common place among the gun grabbers. Reality and truth are usually glaringly absent.

[Thor_MN]

7. Moot point. A mute point would be a point unable to speak.

Just saying.

[proudretiredvet]

8. LOL and you would be right

[NutmegYankee]

12. I don't have an issue with banning the future sale of >10 round magazines

But forcing people to turn in property without compensation is unjust and unconstitutional. If you want to remove them, either pay the current owners or replace the old mags with new 10 round mags.

The 5th amendment should prevent this kind of event.

[LTG]

13. It is a "taking" under the Fifth Amendment

A government, either state or federal, can take private property for public purposes and uses. To do so there are three basic elements that must be met.

First, an identifiable public use or purpose must exist that requires the taking of the property from its owner.

Second, there has to be "due process" before the property is taken. In this case meeting this requirement would consist of: notice (by publication) of the proposed action/regulation to interested parties; public hearings and comment, council debates and a public vote by elected officials (in accord with the laws/ordinances of the governmental entity).

Third, the government must pay to the owner of the property "just compensation". The level of compensation is determined by market value, the price that would be paid by a willing buyer to a willing seller in the open market.

Some of the magazines regularly sell for $30 - $40, or more. It is not uncommon for many gun owners to have a dozen or more magazine per gun. It is also not unheard of for gun owners to have a hundred or more magazines stored away after getting a good price for buying larger lots.

Depending on the size and makeup of the community the turn in could cost tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars from already strapped communities. As the guns and legal magazines will still exist it is debatable whether there will be any noticeable effect in the vast majority of communities that take this course.

I think this is one of the main reasons, along with further alienating gun owners, that most laws "grandfather" in guns and magazines legally owned prior to the effective date of the law. Others avoid this by allowing the guns or magazines to be moved, transferred or sold out of state. Effectively saving money but moving their dangerous problems onto the shoulders of states.