How would a National high-cap magazine ban hurt the transferable MG market?

I’m talking about the kind of hicap ban that grandfathers existing magazines but makes them illegal to otherwise sell, transfer, find, gift, bequeath, inherent, etc. So there’s no mag confiscation or buyback; you just can’t legally transfer hicap mags of any date/age to anyone else.

I think RR and RDIAS prices would be OK because almost everyone interested a $20k M16 has AR mags. But uzi, mac, sten, Riesling, Thompson, etc owners prices might be impacted because they use fairly gun-specific magazines that a new prospective buyer might be unlikely to have.

Yep.  You are also assuming that NFA item's won't be banned.  The Democrats have learned from the 1994 ban, this time they will not allow any grandfathering.  It will be on the lines of California.  The guns and magazines die with you, no transferring.

Many here claim an AWB or high cap mag ban is not possible, that the citizens would stand up and resist. But I call, BS, people did nothing back in 94', and they will do nothing again.

But gun owners have learned from their mistakes. One of the ways we protect our gun rights is by having an over whelming number of firearms, magazine, ammunition, etc... it allows us to weather the storm when stupid laws are passed and make out right bans nearly impossible.

Question: How do you round up 300+ million firearms, billions of magazines and hundreds of million rounds of ammunition?
Answer: You cant.

if the left did get an AWB passed that preventing the transfer of high cap mags it would be decades before we saw a noticeable effect. There would be no way to prove the high cap mag they own wasn't purchased before the  ban date unless their 18th birthday was prior to the ban date. As a result high cap mags will trade hands among adults for many decades to come. having little or no effect on MGs for quite some time.  Also how do you address belt feds, that's a big gray area.

Pretty much kill it off.

I myself would not buy a MG if I could not get mags to go with it.

Plenty of mags to last lifetimes in the US already.  Prices will go up but availability will still be there.

In 2013/14 you could still buy what ever you wanted....and had to pay handsomely for it.

So your answer to break the law and commit felonies because they’ll never know?
Insert atf hey guys come look at this .gif

Fine then, I agree the odds of getting are slim. But , not everyone is willing to commit a felony... especially the kind of person about to spend $10k+ to buy your machine gun in order to comply with the law. I agree with renegade, a machine gun that can only use 10 rounds is not worth they cost... Which shrinks the potential pool of buyers that might have magazines to use already.

I wouldn’t be surprised if machine guns using STANAG mags fell 20% in price and others using non-common mags fall 40%+ all said and done.

I think you’re missing the point... there’s a new generation of magazine bans in the world that effectively makes transfer of ALREADY owned grandfathered magazines illegal to transfer.

What if you want to buy an Uzi,  it you don’t own any uzi mags?  You can get the gun, but there is no legal avenue to own the 20/32 round magazines.

So you’ve either got to be a buyer who is simultaneously willing to commit a felony and obtain mags while spending $12k (to comply with NFA laws by getting a pre-86)... or you’ve got to be relegated to shooting your SMG with 10 round mags.

I think either of these potential buyers results in a reduced demand unable to support the current MG market growth.

I have mentioned on multiple occasions here that a future magazine ban will be the greatest threat to the transferable machinegun market.

Assuming there is a ban on new manufacture and transfer, I suspect certain guns will remain fairly immune for many years.  M16s, AK47s, Ruger 10/22s etc. where standard capacity magazines are commonplace throughout the prospective buyers pool for the time being.  

There are also so many mags out there right now that even if you ban transfers, folks will still trade them around to a certain extent for years.

However, over time there will be a decline of mags as they become more rare as owners die off, they get lost, enforcement rachets up, and folks become more and more skittish about transferring them illegally.

Other machineguns that use rare or proprietary mags will take a significant hit.   Guns like American 180, who owns magazines for those who doesn't already own an AM180. (except for me)  Other guns like MP5s or M11/9 that are not super rare in the semi-world but not exactly common either would certainly take a hit as well.

There are some guns where the design lends itself to modification to a permanent magazine attachment.   Guns like an MP5 with permanently modded Suomi drum that could be loaded from the rear, a thompson or AK47 with a fixed drum, or an M16 that you load from the top may escape the initial legal grasp of the legislation if the magazine is "no longer detachable" and/or larger capacity fixed mag restrictions are limited to legal "rifles/shotguns".

You will probably always have the FFL/SOT purchase market as they will probably still have access to standard mags but can't always get demo letters for posties.  So transferable sort of become like presamples today as FFLs are the only ones that can get the rare magazine that goes with the gun.

Personally, I have mags for a bunch of machineguns I don't currently own but want to own in the future.  This was due in part because Colorado legislation that passed as well as other future Federal level restrictions.  Plus its nice when you buy a new machinegun you dont have to go and buy mags as you already have them.

It also wouldnt surprise me that if there is a ban with no transfers that 20 years down the road, the grandfathered mags are also banned.  Similar to the route CA or NY took.  First stop new sales, then ban transfers, then just totally ban all of them.

I'm not telling you to do anything. Im saying that realistically that's what will happen. Not just for MG owners but for title 1 semi autos as well.

None of us have a crystal ball.

I'm not sure why you're even asking these types of hypothetical gun law guestions here, this is a technical form, not GD.

Personally I and everyone I kow who are regular shooters have a life time supply of high cap mags so none of this matters to us.

Maybe I’m just naive, but do people really think there will be any time of federal level ban on “standard” capacity magazines for the rest of Trump’s presidency??

In gunners defense the sunset clause made revolution a wait and see thing.

Agree with the rest

If you really wanted to pick Nits... You don’t have to be 18 to own magazines.

If I had a young infant prior to the ban, I’d buy them a 20 pack of AR mags and, maybe 10 .308 Pmags, and a 20 pack of assorted glock mags. For good measure maybe 10 uzi, 10 stens, and a couple of Suomi drums.

There is also the option of transferring ownership of magazines to a trust. The magazines can then be possessed by anyone on the trust and people can be added and removed.

This idea deserves it's own Thread in GD.

Seriously...
Buy shit-ton of AR mags. Break them into groups of ten and write up a trust for each group of ten.
Sell a spot as co-trustee to a trust after the big ban and the new co-trustee can come pick up the mags (permanently).

I’d say last week we all would have scoffed at the things he has asked for the past 48 hours, so who knows.

I'm pretty sure the gun community will get creative and create a work around to some magazine ban.  Perhaps a feed tower specific to your gun in order to use whatever flavor of magazine you own like a glock or AR15 mag.  Maybe someone out there will come out with a universal mag system.

I don't know about that. Say some guy wants a Type 92 machine gun or Hotchkiss 1914. He is pretty fucked.

gonna get more STen mags then..

The democrats bill, Assault Rifle ban of 2018, has grandfathered guns and mags in the bill. You cant own, transfr, sell etc mags and gun after the date of enactment that were manufactured after the passage date.

Good thread and worthy, at the least, of discussion here. I'll throw out some of my thoughts--

- The main problem with banning transfer of all existing hi-cap magazines is enforcement.  That is to say,
magazines sales/transfers are not tracked in any way; there are (generally) no magazine serial #'s,
at least, not any that are recorded anywhere (*yes, I realize some mags are #'d to the gun they
were shipped with).   So that means, the second you have it in your possession, you're pretty much
golden...  short of a "sting" where a law enforcement officer catches you in the act of buying / transferring
a "banned magazine," there's just about no way to enforce this ban.

To be clear, I would never encourage anyone to break the law; rather, a law like this would pretty much
end up being "honor system" by and large (for the time being).  50 years hence, well, sure, it would have
a bit more bite...   but let's be honest-- such a 'ban' would likely last for 5-10 years, until some crime was
committed with a "grandfathered" magazine, when much more onerous legislation was passed... IMO, an outright
ban on hi-cap magazine transfers is the beginning of the end of civilian ownership of high-capacity firearms in
the U.S.

- Would be interested to hear from our friends in "ban states"-- for instance, how do they know you've
owned that UZI mag for 20 yrs, versus drove to Arizona yesterday and bought it at a gun show?  How
could they prove it, either way?

- A ban like this could also be challenged on constitutional grounds... not necessarily the 2nd amendment
(though possibly), but under the "takings clause" (unless the government offered an option to purchase
them from owners).  Just the threat of legal invalidation like this may keep a mag ban out of such an
omnibus bill (i.e., they could risk having the entire bill struck down).

- MG demand would probably decrease, but there would still be interest from collectors.  I suspect that
MG's would be transferred with "gimped" limited-capacity mags.  It's at least possible that an exception
would be carved out for NFA weapons; perhaps even a way to register mags for these guns.
And as others have already pointed out, there might be an option for "fixed mags"; maybe even use
of stripper clips or similar (obviously depending on the particular gun in question).

- I agree that M16 demand would be pretty solid for quite a few years; in fact, M16 demand conceivably
could go up in this situation, as it would be one of the few MG's that many existing gun owners could well have
a number of magazines on-hand for.   Others like Mini-14/AC556 mags, Uzi mags, and Sten mags are common
enough; but less common guns like the MP-40, Reising, Sterling, etc., might be relegated to collectors.

- I've personally been stockpiling for quite a long time, and the idea of "giving magazines to someone
who's a child" might also be a strategy worth looking at, if it comes to it.

And one final thought with this-- if it comes to the point that there's an outright ban on mag transfers
among civilians, expect it to be just a small part of other, more onerous, regulations; e.g.,

- AR-15 uppers / barrels heavily regulated
- limits on ammo sales / ammo only through an FFL / no internet sales
- much tighter limits on MG parts / parts kits
- tighter limits on imports (e.g., no more Draco pistols)
- firearm owners ID / mandatory mental health checks
- etc.

In practice, the old "assault weapons ban" (i.e., '94-'04) was riddled with loopholes, and easily
circumvented within the law.  Next time around, I don't expect that we'll have it nearly so
good... oh, and it won't "sunset," either.

My $0.02...

Since we're discussing "high capacity" mags, I thought this was relevant--

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article202486304.html

i.e., the killer in the recent Florida attack was using 10-rd (not "high capacity") magazines,
and he stopped shooting when his rifle apparently jammed...

I heard that a few times, but then heard he had 6-7 full 30rd mags inside. If he were using 10rd'ers I dont think it would change the direction of any new laws

It doesn't matter what he used.

If he used 30rd mags they will say "see this is a perfect example of why we should ban them, it could have drastically reduced deaths if he had to reload more."

If he used 10rd mags they will say "see, mag capacity limits work, he had to reload frequently and it saves lives. The casualties would have been far higher if he had access to high cap mags."

The data is not scientific, there is no control to determine how many lives would be saved or lost based on each scenario. The scientific method requires multiple trials where you change only one variabe. But with mass shootings there are dozens of variables that are change each time.

So unless we are willing to take a mass shooter after he has been arrested, and arm him with the same weapon but different mags and put him back in the same school with the same kids and wait the same amount of time for police to respond we will never know the effect of mag capacity limits. (I'm not actually suggesting we do this.)

But this all requires you to remove emotion and focus on logic, something the left is not capable of.

If this would happen I know a 10 and 15 year old kids who would own every magazine and gun I own except for the ones I need to get me til the end of my life. I’ve bought cases of mags. I’ve done the most I can for my kids.

Double tap.

Well here in CA, some people have 30 round Pmags... because we were allowed to replace a broken 30 rounder with a new one, but the amount of 30 rounders we had before and after the cut off date had to stay the same. How would anyone know how many mags I had before the cut off date?  In sum, the only way to know if someone owns a high capacity magazine legally would be by their age or if they for some reason saved their receipts from decades past.
BTW 30 rounder could be supplemented with any 10+ capacity.

... High Cap bans are pretty fucking stupid. IIRC, the point was to make the gunman reload more and thus more chances to rush him while he reloads.............. Take in mind, how many times crime in CA is committed with A. Illegal Guns, B. Guns that are supposed to be "outlawed", or C. Guns that are using high cap mags. Hell, the San Bernadino shooters were using high cap mags. Did their 30 rounders help them kill more? I would say no. The other side complains on how fast ARs shoot and how fast they are to load, but ban 30 rounders because they don't want us shooting a shit ton of people but forget that you can load a 10 rounder just as fast as a 30 rounder.

You can put them in your kids name now as a bill of transfer and keep using them.  Nothing says they need to be locked away.

It would kill the market. This exact scenario happened in CT. Mg are legal, but mags are grandfathered only. Thus all sales go out of state.

LOL, the govt. won't enact a ban because it wouldn't be viable...  hasn't stopped them before.

I think we will see the war on drugs become the war on guns with similar levels of success...  gotta keep the judicial industrial complex employed.

back to the topic to keep it technical, if it can't be modded to take either STANAG, AK or Glock mags, its value will be a hurtin...

because how many shooters really have Uzi mags?

The reason why grandfathering is always included is the Constitutional principle of unreasonable search and seizure and Bill’s of Attainder.  You can’t take property without cause or pass laws outlawing a previously legal item.

How's that working out for bump stock owners in ban states? Or the rest of the owners in the country in the near future?

Exactly.
Just as none of the plans to stock up on magazines will help, if those are entirely banned.

November might be a tipping point.  Or not.  I'm definitely hoping not.

How is that working out?

Best thing to do is try and make sure something like this never passes.  Inform as many people as you can about facts.

Next thing is that if it passes is to not turn a damn thing in.  It's getting ridiculous, and it's reaching the point where just have to start putting our foot down.  Not trying to be internet-tough.  Just my opinion.  Don't turn in or give up a damn thing if it ever comes to that.