Does anyone know if standard capacity (over 10 rounds) handgun magazines are legal to possess if they are disassembled?

Interesting question.

The interpretation of blocking a magazine at 10 rounds includes a phrase like "not readily able to be restored" to full capacity.  Case law, or so I've been told, indicates that having to disassemble then reassemble a magazine qualifies as "not readily able." 

So, were one to think about such things logically, then a disassembled handgun magazine with a capacity over 10 rounds ought to be legal.

However, the law makes no such provision.  It merely says "thou shalt not." 

Were I a guessing man, I'd guess that those items would be added to the list of charges against you should you ever run afoul of the law on a firearms-related matter. 

I would suggest that Tom is correct in that regardless of the condition of magazine, it would likely be considered illegal. In addition to the reasoning Tom used, I would further suggest that recent decisions in a real case, Olofoson, in which the 7th Circuit ruled that even if a gun is malfunctioning and fires more than one shot per pull of the trigger, it is a "machine gun" and one could be charged with possession of same. Olofson, convicted for the illegal transfer of an automatic weapon when the AR-15 he loaned "slam fired," had his cert to the SCOTUS denied and remains in prison.

So, if you can be convicted of having a "machine gun" if your rifle malfunctions, I would bet that a disassembled magazine with a capacity of more than 10 rounds would still be considered a crime here....

The "gray" area of the law is that laws must be "interpreted" by Judges even though specific words were used to write it.  Obviously, because of this fact, anything is possible, and can still be up to personal emotion despite the requirement of impartiality.  Another example is a self defense shooting involving reloaded ammunition vs. factory loaded.  In the event of a self defense shooting, if you employed the use of reloaded ammunition, the opposing side could claim it was an act of premeditated murder.  It will be stated that you personally design said bullet to kill more effectively than factory designed.  You can call BS but now, not only do you have to prove you shot in self defense, you have have to defend yourself against accusations of premeditated murder.  Fair?  Hell NO!!!  Could it happen?  Fu@k yeah!  (especially if you get a lib judge)

It sounds like the Olofson case is a perfect example to compare this to.  It is one of those "gray" areas. Upon reading more about the Olofson case, there are a lot of intricacies.

a few points for you all..

1) the rifle in question was well over 20 years old.
2) this rifle came form the MANUFACTURER with BOTH an M16 selector, AND trigger. this was not unusual for that model rifle from that manufacturer at the time.
3) that rifle had seen probably close to 4 million rounds in its lifetime, and was on its THIRD set of replacement parts (each time replaced with IDENTICAL parts, though the current set were DPMS manufacture)

now, he DID loan the rifle to a friend, i agree that this was less than smart, especially considering that the kid had only known him for a few months.

a few more tidbits for you.

1) the kid who HAD the rifle, who was the feds star witness, was PAID by the prosecution, and changed his story several times. he was also never charged with possession, as would have happened to almost anyone else.

2) the ATF did far more than use special ammo to make it go FA.. a VERY rare spring had to be used to make it reliable. it was NOT a question of the weapon being dirty.

3) the weapon was first tested, and found by THEIR expert not to be a MG.. it was slightly modified and returned, with instructions to MAKE it work.. (hence the "special ammo"). you can even see in the video, that the shooter was going out of his way to be as far away from the rifle as possible while firing it. because it could have KB'd at any time.

4) many of their own documents back these claims up, and most can even be seen on his Photobucket acct.. (assuming the feds haven't nuked it.)

FWIW *I*, as in me, myself, have fired this VERY rifle a few times. (even had the pleasure of cleaning it afterwords) the selector DID go to an unmarked third position, but it functioned identically (semi-auto ONLY) in both positions when i fired it... (and YES i DO know what i was looking at, it had an M-16 trigger, carrier and selector, but an AR disco, and hammer)


my personal conclusion; either the fire control group was worn out, (as thrice before, it happens to all of us eventually, even myself), OR kerneki (SP?) tried to modify it to make i fire FA (19 Yrs old, the cool factor, "hold my beer and watch this." sorta thing) and did a piss poor job of it, as it jammed after only three rounds twice. (why in Hades he would go to a PUBLIC range to test it out is beyond me) OR, (and this is not as much a stretch as it may sound), he was set up..

The case was obviously more complicated than just his gun broke and he's in jail, but despite the complicating factors, the bottom line, for me, and the "take home" message I got, was that it doesn't matter if a gun is malfunctioning or broken, if it fires more than once with a single trigger pull, you run the risk of incurring the wrath of the ATF, and its unlimited resources, for having an "illegal machine gun."

I don't know about you, but to me, that's VERY scary!