? for Steve or any of our other resident lawyers.  If I read the law correctly, possessing a magazine with >10 round capacity that was made after '94 is illegal.  BUT - the absence of markings shall be a presumption that the mag is legal.  

It appears to me that if a mag is unmarked, you couldn't be charged with possession of a postban magazine.

Correct, or no?

QS

That's the way I interpret it as well.  It appears you could not be charged with possession of an unmarked magazine, because HTF would you know if it's legal or not?  And if YOU weren't the importer, I don't see that the individual end-user would have any liability at all?

If these are for a USP I don't believe there were any USP pistols manufactured prior to '94. This would make any >10 round mag illegal unless it was LEO only.

yesw but law says it has be to be marked so even if we all know its a post ban mag unless its Marked with a date [b]AND![/b] a LEO/gov/export its legal

Yes, the 9mm and .40 USP's were available for sale in the US prior to 9/94.  The .45's weren't available for sale here until 1995, but that doesn't mean they (and more importantly) the mags weren't in production before the onset of the 94 crime bill.  The USP was in development for many years prior to this, and it is perfectly reasonable to think a boatload of mags were manufactured prior to 9/94.  There are several anecdotal stories of people in the industry who recall seeing USP .45 mags here in the US (even though the gun wasn't available yet) prior to the AWB as well as several magazine articles that featured photos of production USP .45's with a 1994 date code.  So, even though they were not for sale here yet, they were at least in production prior sometime in 1994.  The USP compacts get a little trickier, but once again, they were in development for many years and it can be argued that some of these mags were actually made prior to the cuttoff date.  The only ones who know for sure are HK Orbendorf, and they haven't made any public statements that I know of either way.  HK USA has, but they are really nothing much more than a warehouse - they import the stuff, but don't make anything.   They did not import any preban USP .45 or USP compact mags, and so make the claim that any here are illegal imports intended for the european market.  HK USA seems to be of the opinion that any HK stuff in this country that they did not import themselves does not exist, which is not necessarily the case.

Rocko

Thanks, all.  The mags in question are for a USP Compact...but they aren't marked, and the law seems to be clear.  Would you carry them, Steve?

I would make sure that there are [i]no[/i] markings on them whatsoever.  HK sometimes marks their mags with a series of cryptic lot codes - these could possibly construed as a "serial number" as definied in the law, despite the fact that HK won't publically tell us what they mean.  Someone leaked some of the codes on sturmgewehr.com, though.  The following lots have these manufacture dates associated with them:

IR = 1993
IE = 1995
IK = 1996
IO = 1997
ID = 1998
II = 1999

Only one of the (postban) mags that came with my USP .40 compact was coded, the other was not.  Neither of my USP .45 mags that came with my tactical was, but the spare postban mag I picked up was.

Apparently, there were also some issues with some people melting these codes off of the plastic mag bodies, but I believe in your case, all the compact bodies are metal.

Rocko

Metal mag bodies, no markings whatsoever other than USPc9.