In for a penny, in for a kidney

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Remember I said “I have a ‘favorites’ list at one of my vendors websites. Its a list of things I want to buy when they eventually become ‘in stock’. I check that list several times a day. As of late, I have noticed that around 2-3am they are adding stock to their online inventory and it sells out almost instantly. But…sometimes I sneak one past the goalie and get lucky.“?

So…this happened:

:::sigh::: I don’t know whats worse…my trying to time the market, or my trying to time the magazine market. (Although to be fair…I did really, really well in the market this year.)

Two hundred more for the Deep Sleep. No, I will not sell you any, don’t ask. Normally I’d say go hit your local FFL and have them contact RSR and order them but I’m fairly confident these will sell out in the next 24 hours.

Edited to add:

Did I just spend a buttload of money that I didn’t need to spend? My neighbor thinks so. We were talking and I mentioned that I foresaw a magazine ban on the horizon. My neighbor, a learned man and retired military officer (though a Biden supporting Democrat) said that a magazine ban had been ruled unconstitutional. He was, of course, referring to the Ninth Circus Circuits decision earlier this year that struck down Californias magazine ban as unconstitutional. (And, yes, who would have seen that coming from the Ninth?) So, as I understand it, states within that Ninth district should be free from any onerous magazine capacity ban (on a state level. Federal level is a different story. Federal law usually supersedes state law. We kinda had a war about that). But on a federal level it is still an undecided thing. Same for states outside the Ninth. Is California going to appeal it to the Supreme Court? If they do, I hope that the legacy Trump has created there would smack any ban down without even blinking. I suspect California knows that and might not be willing to push the issue further, but rather bide(n) their time for a leftist court-stacking as opposed to risking creating a nationwide precedent that they really don’t want. In short, they might be content to live with a ‘maybe’ instead of pushing the issue and getting a ‘no’.

So, back to the question at hand… should I be spending money on magazines like this when there might be enough legal juice out there to preclude another magazine ban? I really don’t know. Historically, .gov does what it wants and when it gets smacked down on constitutionality it takes some time. California’s mag ban, for example, has been around for decades and only now is it finally getting threatened. Additionally, there are probably several ‘loopholes’ that .gov (state or federal) could exploit to give a de facto ban. Registration of magazines with high registration fees, expensive enhanced background checks….basically a tedious and discouraging NFA-style process that doesn’t strictly limit your ability to own a magazine…it just makes you wanna throw up your hands and say ‘screw this’.

Note that we’re just talking about magazine bans in this case. The other elephant in the room, “assault weapons”, are a different story. My neighbor says that he does foresee that one coming. I agree with him on that one. But the magazine thing….hmmm… I hope it winds up going to the Supremes and gets decided in my favor but until it does I have to operate on the assumption that a magazine ban could stand. So….I wish I didnt have to spend this money on magazines, but I’m not sorry I did.

31 thoughts on “In for a penny, in for a kidney”

  1. Commander any chance you can direct us to this fine company? I do understand of having a secret fishing hole.

  2. What makes you think that THIS time they will let you keep grandfathered mags? They made that mistake before. They will likely outlaw standard cap mags (and possibly all autoloaders) except for qualified groups like BLM and Antifa. As they saying goes, this isn’t revenge, it’s a reckoning.

    • What makes you think I care if they grandfather them?
      “…I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”

      • Well said! But soon it may be time to open the last box; the other boxes protecting freedom seem to have failed. In the meantime, living well is the best revenge.

  4. The decision in Duncan v. Becerra by Federal Judge Richard Benitez that made “high capacity” magazines legal in California was around 90 pages in length. It was meticulous and extremely detailed and left no “wiggle room” for the state. For the week after the decision, Californians were able to purchase magazines with a capacity over 10 rounds. Judge Benitez issued a stay of his ruling pending appeal, but declared all magazines purchased, acquired, or transferred during that week to be legally acquired and he forbade any law enforcement officer from interfering with their possession. (In other words, he took away from an appellate court the right to issue a more limited stay while the case was appealed.)

    As no surprise, the decision was appealed by the State of California to the Ninth Circuit (which, thanks to Donald J. Trump, almost has a Republican majority right now).

    As required, a 3-judge panel heard the appeal. It decided against the State of California and upheld Judge Benitez’s decision.

    California then requested a review by an en banc panel of judges. If it is granted, a panel of 9 or 11 judges (I forget which) will review the decision by the 3-judge panel. No decision concerning an en banc review has been rendered so far.

    Even if an en banc review is granted, the loser will appeal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court hears only a small percentage of appeals, which explains one reason why it ducked hearing 2nd Amendment cases for so long. (The other being that 2nd Amendment cases were hot potatoes and more liberal judges didn’t want to rule in favor of the 2nd Amendments plain requirements.) What will greatly increase the chance of the Supreme Court hearing the appeal in this case, however, is that there is a split among the circuits regarding the issue. If the court decides to hear the appeal, with Amy Comey Barret on the court, even if John Roberts waffles (as is common now), it is very likely that the Federal District Judge’s decision will be upheld.

    While Joe Biden and Kamala Harris tried to impress the Left during the primaries with how fast they would act to ban “assault rifles,” this was pure political blather. In Heller v. D.C., Justice Scalia, writing for the majority, wrote that weapons “in common usage” were protected by the 2nd Amendment. Since 1 in 5 rifles sold in the US are AR15s, good luck to Libs in proving that the AR15 is not in “common usage.” Also, good luck to Libs trying to prove to a 6-3 court that it should overturn the Heller decision.

  5. I’m with ya!! Ordered a “few” for the stock pile and possible re-sale! If nothing comes of it, I got a “few”!

  6. Whether or not magazines every get banned, they’re almost certain to become more expensive than the price you just paid. From that standpoint, it’s still a decent investment.

  8. What might be your thoughts on that biden supporting
    neighbor turning you in, concerning “all” those mags
    he knows you have…?

  9. If Biden wins, I definitely see a ban on the sales of new ‘assault weapons’, both domestic and foreign. High capacity magazines sales ban – yep.

    Taking existing guns out of the market -hmmm … nope. Taking any private property away by force, especially the means of a citizens self defense is pushing it. Those gun / ammunition sales tell me a lot. A new law greatly increasing the sentence length of the convicted if using an ‘assault weapon’ probably.

    I think the Left is going to be distracted for a while. The Progs are already bitching about being left out of loop – they want their free shit and aren’t going to be quiet about it.

  10. You can thank Donald J Trump for changing the ideological leaning of the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals. He, thanks to the laziness of his Kenyan predecessor has appointed over 300 Constitutional originalists to the Federal bench. Including nearly a half dozen to the Ninth Circuit. It is BTW the largest court in the country. Covering a large chunk of the entire west coast and Arizona, Alaska and Hawaii. Plus parts of Idaho, Utah, Nevada. The court has 27 judges assigned to it.

    • Yes sir. No matter what happens, Donald Trump did more good work for the American people in 4 years than the establishment did…..ever.

  11. Not that they haven’t folded like limp noodles on gun control before but it looks like Republicans will maintain control of the Senate so any gun control schemes will have to be passed by them. This doesn’t give me a lot of comfort however, it could temper some of the more extreme anti-2A points Biden campaigned under sort of like you mentioned in this write up how a mag ban is more likely than an assault weapons ban. Sorry if this upsets all the doomers out there.

  12. Should you be spending money on mags considering the legal juice? I would say the answer is yes and never any anything but yes. You, and others like you, are smart enough not to put blind trust into anything .gov and smart enough to guide the rest of us in the right direction. We can’t even vote for a President without the left cheating their ass off so why would anyone ever listen to a empty promise from anyone in a .gov position. Commander, I don’t post often but I do read your blog daily and I say thank you for what you do for all of us.

  13. “A bird (or in this case, a box of magazines) in the hand, is worth two in the bush.”

    That rule has never been rescinded, AFAIK.

    Nice get.

    BTW, I have seen zero sign that the 9th Circus ruling has affected the ability to receive high-cap magazines in Califrutopia.
    And that’s probably a vendor problem.
    Frankly, I haven’t bothered to follow the court convolutions, but last I heard, the ruling has not done anything but make Page 93 of the Legal News.

    Califrutopia’s attitude to losing in court seems to be essentially “And how many divisions has the Pope?”

    YMMV

    • Nevermind. Survivorman99’s summary revived my memory: the ruling is stayed, pending further decision.

      So, still no Constitution in CA and a bunch of Western states.
      Just like before the ruling.
      Like I thought.

      Funny thing, magazines – large cap or otherwise – don’t have DNA, and few of them have generations (Glocks being an exception) and it’s thus hard to impossible to tell definitively when and where they may have been made, purchased, or otherwise acquired.

      Just saying.

      But two more originalist judges appointed to 9th Circus and we flip 1/5th of America back into the republic, for another generation at least.
      Including the idiots in Frisco, Lost Angeles, Sacramento, Portland, and Seattle, kicking and screaming.

      Elections matter.

      • Aesop,

        Not so fast! I have no Magpul 30-round magazines, but I have been told that they are stamped with month and year of manufacture on the side. Before Judge Benitez’s ruling, unless a Magpul magazine was restricted to 10 rounds, possession of a true 30-round Magpul mag was illegal in California because the company did not even start producing magazines until after the California ban went into effect, so there was no grandfathering exception. (I will leave it to others to figure out whether Magpul and standard GI magazine parts are compatible enough to use the “repair” loophole in order to qualify the magazine as a re-built magazine. If GI mag parts were used to cobble together something that qualifies as a repaired mag, then the result would not be a true Magpul mag. It would be a Frankenstein mag, wouldn’t it.

        I was at the Knob Creek Machinegun Shoot outside Louisville about six or seven years ago. I was discussing with a vendor the ridiculous California magazine restriction. I asked, “How would the State of California know if someone brought in a used GI magazine that was manufactured post-ban?” I was considerably surprised when he took apart a GI magazine and then used a dental mirror to show me the date stamp INSIDE. Son of a gun!

        Since then, I have noticed that some government contractors have the dates of manufacturing clearly stamped externally on the magazine.

        Jim Rawles prepared information that is helpful in dating magazines by the name of the manufacturer, the period they were manufactured, the floorplate stamping, and the color of the follower, etc. http://fulton-armory.com/faqs/AR-FAQs/ARMags.htm If you do an internet search, you can find other postings concerning magazine production that are useful, too.

        Back to the Ninth Circuit, it is routine for any lower court decision that rendered a state law unconstitutional to be stayed while the appeal runs its course. Judge Benitez’s opinion and the stay he, himself, issued, was a great victory for gunowners. A 3-judge panel agreed with him. The final result remains to be seen, however.

        Gunowners who did not take advantage of the “Freedom Week” that followed Judge Benitez’s decision have only themselves to blame (and, of course, the governor and California legislature that caused the problem in the first place by passing the magazine law). They snoozed for a week and lost their chance to order some of the five million magazines purchased by other Californians during “Freedom Week.”

        I recall after the Sandy Hook ammo shortage seeing one match shooter who whined about not being able to drop by Walmart on his way to weekend matches in order to pick up the ammo he would use. Seriously? Seriously? What a loser.

        My two brothers split a thousand round case of Federal 5.56 ammo a year and a half ago. With the rebate, it was $.25/rd. delivered. Gun owners like that Walmart customer currently whine about high ammo prices now, while the really smart gunowners don’t have extra room to store much more ammo anyway, and they can ride out the current ammo shortage until prices come back down to earth.

        The same people who failed to store enough ammo now are likely to be complaining about the high price of standard capacity magazines if Sleepy Joe occupies the Oval Office next year.

  15. Zero- You probably have more mags than most distributors! And I always thought I had a goodly amount. I have to say good investment no matter how things play out politically.

    And by the way I finally got the components together for my Ruger Charger 10/22 pistol with SB FS1913 brace. This was a configuration you extolled and I embraced and it is very slick and handy. Thanks again.

  16. For you guys thinking “he is just going to sit on them until the price is a hundred bucks apiece and then sell them. That’s price gouging!”.
    I bought a 1968 Camaro new for 2600.00. Pulled the engine and installed a 327 375hp Corvette engine. Kept it cherry and never abused it (ran it hard). I sold it in 1988 for 12K. Now that car in cherry shape cannot be found for less than 50-60K. Is that price gouging? Hell no, that is the current price. Why should I sell it for 2600.00 today? Not a bit of difference with those mags, except you want Zero to pay for your laziness/stupidity for not buying when prices were cheap.

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