Also a 5 round magazine is standard, not a 20 or 30.
The morons who carry their AK47 or whatever in Walmart, they give gun owners a bad name. I mean, I can see a holstered handgun, but you don’t need a AR15 to go shopping.
The Ruger Mini-14 Ranch Rifle (which I assume is the rifle that @ParallelLines is referring to, although confusingly Ruger also has a line of bolt action rifles under the label “Ranch Rifle”) is sold with a 5 round detachable magazine but there are 20 and 30 round detachable magazines (and as large as 100 rounds if you don’t mind a stupid-looking jam-o-matic dual drum) readily available on the aftermarket, and in fact it used to be sold with a 20 round rifle as the ‘poor man’s AR-15’).
I grew up around people who carried and shot a large variety of firearms, most of them coming from the then nascent special operations community or sneaky government agencies. As a rule, they were all kind of nutty and not just a little paranoid about the government (being screwed over in various secret wars around the globe tends to make you suspect the motives of politicians and government functionaries, I guess), and most of them carried weapons about their person on a regular basis but there was an unspoken rule that you shouldn’t make a spectacle or upset the natives by flashing your gear around or being conspicuously intimidating because they weren’t trying to posture or make some absurd point about freedoms that no one was actively trying to deny them.
The first time I saw people walking around openly with military rifles in public were white nationalist scumbags who incidentally ended up getting into a bit of trouble with the FBI for advocating violent overthrow of the US government. At the time I figured that kind of behavior was so far on the fringe that you didn’t really have to worry about ordinary citizens emulating it but the progressive paramilitarization of society as a whole has somehow normalized this (in certain regions of the country at least) and accorded it some patina of legitimacy. It has also caused the firearms industry that—aside from lucrative but often problematic military contracts—was once highly focused on hunting and recreational shooting to market and promote this segment into the dominant area of premium products, and not just firearms but accessories to make them even more militaristic.
And while these people are not the majority of gun owners in the country, they are the most vocal and politically active on the topic, sufficient for politicians to pander to them and also convinced that their particular interests are in line with the larger far-right and alt-right political communities on a wide array of issues about which they are typically very poorly informed. The result are people who will not accept any laws or regulations, especially those limiting in any way capacity, caliber, features, et cetera. The obsession with ‘bump stocks’ and AR-15 ‘pistols’ using an ‘arm brace’ to avoid the BATFE controlled short-barreled rifle (SBR) category is really nothing more than a triumph of marketing because there is really no legitimate need for either of these products even among shooters interested in (recreational) competitive tactical shooting. So you have an opposition driven mostly by manufactured fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) that isn’t actually interested in any laws intended to curtail violent crime out of an oversized concern that such efforts are a wedge into taking away all rights.
That is what we’re dealing with, and is the entire reason we have to have these very delicate semantic dance-steps around the quite simple and objective question of the o.p., to wit maximizing the effectiveness of laws to prevent firearms (and other weapons) used in crime while minimizing the impact upon ordinary law-abiding citizens. It is literally an attitudinal problem, not a pragmatic one of assessing effectiveness or implementation.
Stranger
Correct, I didn’t both to differentiate as this isn’t the thread to talk about personal guns in detail, and I did mention it was built to emulate the M-14. One of the reasons I brought it up though is that it is similar to the AR platform in that in 1973, when released, it was cosmetically similar to the prior generation military rifle noted above. While mechanically distinct, it was visually emulated the military rifles of the age, similar to what we’ve talked about with the AR platform.
Although for most of the people my age (late 40s) it was probably more associated with there use in the A-Team TV series, where they were quite distinct (bearing on the now separated sub-thread). Again the point is these weapons are functionally equivalent to the AR ( although calling them a poor man’s AR is funny in that they generally cost a good bit more than the cheaper AR options ) - they have generally dodged the same legislation due to the cosmetic differences.
Although in 2020 Canada did group it into the prohibited class along with a number of other semi-auto weapons.
So, since a large majority of the concurrent thread in IMHO (and I’m not going to even talk about the Pit threads!) has once again begun to involve bickering over who is / isn’t part of the problem / solution, I wanted to go back to some min-maxed proposals in a slightly more focused thread. Thank you all, by the way, for trying to adhere to the spirit of the the OP and not scoring points, it’s refreshing.
So, while it has a bad reputation in gun-owner circles, I think that in conjunction with a 10 round magazine cap, variants of the bullet button legislation could be a workable improvement to our federal laws. I find this as something as a compromise between those who want smaller maximum capacity (say 5 rounds) and those who want a larger capacity but also want to take effort to slow / impede the possibility of fast magazine changes that certainly aid mass shootings.
For those not familiar with the concept, CA’s original legislation, since changed, required semi-auto firearms sold in state to not have a single push button magazine release, but to instead have it recessed sufficiently to require some sort of tool (at one point even a bullet tip qualified) to release the magazine, before another could be loaded. Not surprisingly, tons of work arounds were quickly released to the market and lots of lawsuits and counter legislation followed.
But in theory, especially if well written and federal (so that it isn’t a sub set of guns, but all guns on a national level were involved) you could get a large improvement in slowing down mass shooters, while preserving a slightly larger individual capacity, a compromise that might appeal to a wider group.
(and yes, I fully acknowledge that there would be people who in a heartbeat who illegally modify these weapons given a chance, but at least it’s at least another 1-2 stages where they could get identified beforehand)
Once again, not a perfect solution, but one that might get at least a small improvement while not having a major effect on existing gun owners. And it may appeal more to those who might balk at a 5 round maximum capacity.
I have no issues with this, but the 10 round limit should only be on rifles.
The police really like the Glock 17, and any attempt to ban it would lead to non-support by the Police.
The police appear to be part of the problem.
My intent (and the existing tech) was for semi-auto rifles, along with the 10 round magazines. I would be of many minds about semi-auto pistols, but could allow myself to be persuaded, rather reluctantly: I’ve actually been though a sale and repurchase once of a pistol due to magazine limits. Previously I owned a S&W M&P 9 stock, which came with a 17 round mag by default. Here in Colorado, new legislation maximized magazines at 15 rounds, so I sold it, not wanting to be unable to replace said magazines, and not wanting to cheat to bypass the law.
Which ended up with me buying two different pistols, a M&P .40 S&W Full size (15 rounds) and a M&P 9c (12) for carry (at the time I did carry, and for reasonably good reason, but have since not needed too). If it became a 10 round magazine maximum, I’d probably groan and sell those and consider if I did/did not need another handgun since my needs have changed.
Why am I bringing this up? Because I do want to point out that changing the rules has two issues. One, most new laws let existing if non-compliant weapons and magazines that are already owned get grandfathered in, so it’s a long term issue. Two, for those who abide by the spirit and letter of the law, there is going to be a huge surge in sold weapons and very possibly newly purchased ones.
So in the short term, it can cause a huge uptick in sales both from people panic buying prior to expected scarcity (in the 4 months prior to the legislation change in CO you could NOT buy a new full sized mag for anything less than scalper prices (500%+), as well as purchase of newly compliant items.
This isn’t to talk us out of passing such laws, but that there is always complaints about how the firearm / ammo manufacturers are make record profits after such issues- and it will happen again.
Why on earth would that matter? Police officers on the force aren’t civilians, the question of whether they should have access to a given gun is 100% separate from the question of what guns civilians have access to.
It is my experience that for most of the large-selling brands and models (most Glocks, Sig-Sauers, SW M&P, heck even inexpensive Taurus G series) there already are in the market 10-round compliant magazines, for the purpose of sale in states that already do have such a limit.
Yeah, really, I’d expect the duty weapons of law enforcement and military to be exempted.
If they expect to get special privileged status for their personal home stash that’s a whole other different story.
Since these are 1st Gen M&P series, yes, there are a few, but generally at truly silly costs. Like $50+ per magazine plus S&H.
The point would be the cost of replacing the magazines isn’t economically viable for me and my use, especially as I already have other perfectly functional inherited revolvers for home defense. So I’d either sell them (if said law was state rather than federal) or keep them if grandfathered and dispose of them safely if they became unusable due to bad springs/etc. Due to my FILs rather extensive collection, I’m not planning on buying any more guns because I’m getting more no matter what. 
(( I did mention in several of these threads that I have more firearms than I’d ever need due to my FIL literally paying for my wife and I to have a full vault style safe to store part of -HIS- inherited collection of firearms. ))
Well, sure. But Do you think many gunstores will carry such a weapon if they can only sell to a Police officer? Is the police market by itself (and of course many officers don’t use that Glock) enough for Glock to keep selling here?
It is like saying a cop can legally buy a Tommy gun. Great. But no one sells them.
Aren’t they saying it is the same weapon with a different magazine size?
In which case sure…why wouldn’t a gun store sell high capacity magazines only to the local police?
And, if not, I am sure the local police department can source expanded magazines from somewhere.
What then, is the ban? No gun can be sold with more than a 10 round detachable magazine? or no gun can be sold that can hold a magazine larger?
AFAIK the guns are the same with different sized magazine attachments. You only legally restrict the magazines and not the guns. I’m not sure they could make a gun that only accepts a magazine of a given size (probably possible but such a gun would be unusual today).
Here’s an extended magazine on a pistol. How can the gun manufacturer prevent that?
(Yeah, I get your point @ParallelLines , the accessory makers do focus more on what’s currently selling.)
Most of the magazine “bans” that do exist mean that you only sell (or include with the gun at sale) magazines up to X capacity, and that normally means a standard fit magazine internally plugged/crimped/whatever to only fit X rounds. (So Glock dealers would still sell 17s and 19s just as in states that already have the limit and if people say they might as well switch to a model designed for lower capacity they already sell those too. They did not get to be where they are by ignoring market segments). If anything, and subject to possible “grandfathering”, they create penalties for being found in possession of the banned article and for having it in the weapon.
Oh, and for those following at home, that pistol is the above-mentioned Glock 17, which in standard OEM configuration with a magazine flush to the grip has a 17-round capacity. Only someone decided they wanted to put a “fun stick” on this one because, hey, we can.
As a +1 for @JRDelirious’s post, those extended magazines are almost always pure Hollywood or TactiKool theater (which doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous). Oversize magazines that extend past the magazine well (in the grip) are NOTORIOUSLY prone to being whacked against things, and magazine metal is pretty thin - that way lies failure to feed, jams and a host of other issues.
So if you see one of these outside Hollywood, that person is a dangerous lunatic in more ways than one!
You mean like these morons?:
Stranger