When firearm magazines are outlawed...

Handgun and rifle magazines are selling out at Wal-Mart and other retailers and the prices for them are soaring on eBay and other sites. One gun shop in Charlotte did more than $1 million in sales yesterday: the most it's had in over half a century of business. With the increasing likelihood that the Obama Administration and too much of Congress are going to attempt restrictions on guns and magazines, people are gettin' it while the gettin's good.

So I can't help but think: a magazine isn't much more than a metal box with a spring. Come to think of it, that's all a magazine is. I could very easily manufacture a rough but working magazine - holding as much ammo as I wish - in a machine shop. Apart from the spring, EVERYTHING that I'd need to produce a magazine in an hour or so's time is within ready reach of me.

Hey, I've made knives. Making parts for guns would be the next logical step. And there are many with far greater skills who could produce not just the magazines but full-working guns, and possibly mass-produce them at that.

Not to mention that rapid-prototyping - AKA "3D printing" - is already allowing for production of magazines and other gun parts on your desktop. Before very long if you want a gun, you'll be able to download one from the Internet. Literally.

I'm guessing that if government restrictions are placed on firearms and magazines, that there will be a vast underground market for those produced in home shops etc. And every one of them will be unregistered and untraceable.

I'm just sayin', is all...