Latest Breaking News
In reply to the discussion: 'My sister shot herself': 5-year-old dies playing with father’s unsecured handgun [View all]benEzra
(12,148 posts)and required AR-15's and other modern-looking civilian rifles made between 1994 and 2004 to have nonthreaded muzzles and nonadjustable stocks. No guns were banned, and AR-15 sales easily tripled 1994-2004, so I'm not sure that's a very good example. A strict reading of D.C. v. Heller would seem to protect AR-15's and such (under the "in common use for lawful purposes" test), but we'll see. Still, given that more Americans own "assault weapons" than hunt, and they are the most popular civilian rifles in U.S. homes, such bans aren't going anywhere.
A small handful of states have instituted bans on rifle handgrips that stick out, adjustable stocks, and other "modern" features, but you can still own an AR-15 in California or New York if you put a straight stock on it and don't call it by a Prohibited Name of Ickiness.
I don't think the U.S. Supreme Court has addressed arbitrary bans on civilian magazine capacity either way, but it's hard to imagine that a minuscule 10-round limit would pass strict scrutiny, if anyone bothered to apply it. The very first repeating rifles ever made (the 1861 Henry, and Winchesters since 1866) had capacities of 15, 30-round magazines hit the market in the early 1870s, and 13+ round pistols have been common since the 1930s, so it's hard to make a case for threatening 50 million people with prison for possessing items that have been mainstream since the 1860s.