Count Carefully

The new law in New York does not outlaw magazines that hold more than 7 rounds. You can still own a magazine that holds up to ten. It’s just that if you put more than 7 rounds in the magazine, you’re a criminal. This has to be the most laughably ridiculous things I’ve ever seen come from the anti-gunners. Does anyone seriously think criminals and mass shooters are going to even be remotely concerned?

UPDATE: Upon more careful reading of the statute, it does indeed ban magazines that hold more than 7 rounds. There is no grandfathering for magazines that have more than ten rounds. Those are contraband. You have a year to get rid of them or become a criminal. There is grandfathering for 8-10 round magazines, you just may not put more than 7 rounds in them, or you become a criminal. I should note that this isn’t just magazines. This is now an illegal item in New York:

So is this:

If you have any belts with more than 7 rounds on them, they are illegal. In fact, because it covers “readily restored” as well, any belt links at all, if you have more than enough to string 7 rounds together, are now contraband. Blocking would also seem to be out, because it could be readily restore to shoot more than 7 rounds.

UPDATE: Bill here. The stuff in CAPS is changes. You will note there is a C&R exception, but if it can be used in a replica rifle, it doesn’t apply by my reading. So it’s a useless exemption.

23 thoughts on “Count Carefully”

  1. That they have gone full retard is just about the best thing they could have done at this point. I don’t want it to happen but if one of these lunatics uses bombs and kills a bunch of people or uses revolvers and does the same would be about the best coda to this stupidity that we can get. Again, I don’t want it to happen but I am not going to be better than these statist blood dancers any longer. It’s not getting us anywhere.

  2. From what I’ve read of the bill it seems that:

    1) Magazines holding over 10 rounds will not be grandfathered and must leave the state after 1 year.
    2) 8-10 round magazines will be grandfathered, but cannot be loaded with more than 7 rounds (doing so outside of your house could put you in jail for 3 months).
    3) After the magazine limit goes into effect, new magazines holding over 7 rounds will be illegal.

  3. So does the cop get to ask you to attempt to load more rounds into your magazine? To check that it is ‘only a ten round body’. Then bust you for having too many rounds in the magazine. This is the state that allows stop and frisk crap on the streets.

    Nothing in the bill would have affected the murderer who was let out and shot the firemen. Making something already illegal more illegal really does not affect anything. I doubt they will prosecute more criminals for gun possession. Just harass those who legally attempt to purchase firearms and want to retain them. Criminals have rights in New York. Legal gun owners do not.

    1. Erk … it would be best if you put a post or whatever in your magazines so a cop couldn’t claim you had 8 or more rounds in them….

      And, yeah, this is one of the silliest things yet from them.

  4. Is there an exemption in this law for law enforcement or in their zeal to punish the law-abiding did they forget to put one in? If so, how many cops are now criminals in NY? Can citizen’s arrests be made?

  5. Great! a New Yorker gets to work with SAF to kill magazine restrictions.

    I just sent SAF some money to start helping now.

    1. IANAL, but it would seem the state will have a hard time justifying this policy. We’re not even getting into “ASSAULT WEAPON!” territory, especially since this is the first state to ever go below 10 rounds.

  6. This article has a copy of the bill embedded that’s a bit easier to parse – additions are in green and underlined, and removals are in red.

    And how do they plan to prove whether a 7-10 round magazine was manufactured before or after the effective date?

  7. If we could rally enough gun owners to march on Albany, each person could carry a single magazine loaded with eight rounds as a mass act of civil disobedience. If we managed to get a crowd of 10,000 it would be a powerful statement, even if the police chose to arrest a few. It would lend itself to all sorts of theatrics, like having the crowd remove and replace one round repeatedly. “Look. Now we’re criminals, now we’re not. Now we’re criminals, now we’re not.”

    1. You’re probably better off just marching on Albany. The civil disobedience component will only reduce numbers. You want people to turn out… and it has to have a purpose.

      1. Good point. However, I”ve been amazed at how mad many folks are up here. My rod and gun club meeting was like a hornets’ nest last week. Cuomo is effectively radicalizing the opposition.

        1. Where’s “up here”?

          If I did read my sources correctly and did my math right, there just aren’t enough people “Upstate” to make a difference. Only if there are enough of you to swing enough elections in NYC, Long Island, Westchester, and Rockland will you be able to make a difference outside of the courts … and at least some of those gun owners will just plain leave the state.

          One thing that’s starting to really concern me is the potential for evidence abuse. It’s very easy to demonstrate that a 10 round STANAG magazine is not a 20 or greater round one, but whether or not you loaded your’s to 7 or more rounds could come down to your vs. a cop’s testimony, or forensics that might claim you shot more than 9 rounds without a magazine change, etc.

          Somewhere in there is a riff on the famous Dirty Harry opening monologue; I see the above as potentially being a “do you feel lucky” enough to dare employ underloaded magazines, especially after the first disputed case gets coverage. Which could well be a citizen overloading his, but who can you trust, and it’ll still underline how silly this is.

          Hmmm, and the silliness shows Cuomo violating Machiavelli’s “Never do an enemy a small injury” principle. Every time one of you underloads a magazine, or party unloads one before you exit your residence, you’re going to be … annoyed.

          That will turn to fury if someone’s death can ever be traced to their not having enough rounds in a self-defense case….

          And thinking further, if you decide keep one or more fully loaded for self-defense in your residence, in the legal aftermath you’re already going to be in a bad posture. Sure, it’s just a fine, but it’s still a criminal act, and the prosecutor will no doubt make much of that in making the case your actions were not legitimate self-defense.

          Sigh; unless enough of this gets struck down by the courts, the only good I can see coming from it is that it is moving a lot of us in the agitated hornet direction. It certainly reifies the threat to a lot of us outside of New York, especially the closed room and midnight nature of its crafting and passage.

  8. My guess is that they had to grandfather the 10 round mags, since those are the smallest in existence for most modern handguns. If they banned the only size currently in existence for the vast number handguns currently in use, it would be a de-facto ban on all modern handguns, and not meet the Heller V. DC minimum of permitting handguns inside the home.

    1. Feh, I can already see Lefties snarking “Just 3D print yourself some seven-rounders!”

      If this thing stands, it not only kills that overly optimistic idea that 3D printing would thwart gun laws, it also effectively hollows out McDonald and Heller pretty good.

      Bleah. It’s getting so you couldn’t tell which side of the river was Canada, from a gun owner POV…

      1. What’s the status of legal action on D.C.’s 10 round magazine limit?

        Once you’ve established the principle that the state can limit magazines to fairly small numbers of rounds, there’s not much point to arguing between 7 and 10 rounds, is there?

        Perhaps a case could be made for what this does to Garand owners, although the state could of course argue “just buy some 7 round clips”, there are smaller ones for competition purposes.

    2. But isn’t this a de facto ban going forward? If I don’t have a handgun today, aren’t my choices restricted to ones with magazines of 7 or less rounds?

      This just avoids a mad scramble while everyone with handgun magazines of 8 or more rounds tries to replace them with generally or totally unavailable 7 round ones, or gets their’s modified in a way that doesn’t violate the law. That would get the natives really upset.

Comments are closed.