The Show Me State gets funny with their laws...

Random “blue states”, heavily-populated by members of and voters for the Democratic Party, are introducing and/or enacting legislation that will outlaw the sale, manufacture, transfer, or possession of certain items deemed to be “assault weapons”.

These proposed and/or enacted laws, interestingly, typically include language that instantly shows the legislation to not have been authored by anyone who knows anything about firearms and is most likely authored by someone working for the Brady Bunch.

 For instance, Missouri recently introduced HB545, outlawing “assault weapons” and “large-capacity magazines”. In the definition of “assault weapon”, as it pertains to handguns, they have outlawed the possession of short-barreled rifles that are already illegal under federal law unless a person has been on a 6mo-2yr waiting list to be cleared by the ATF and paid a substantial tax for the privilege of owning it.

As this bill pertains to rifles, they have outlawed every semi-automatic rifle with a detachable box magazine ever made, provided it has any type of fore-end stock.
(1) "Assault weapon", any:
(a) Semi-automatic rifle that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and has one or more of the following:
a. A pistol grip or thumbhole stock;
b. Any feature capable of functioning as a protruding grip that can be held by the nontrigger hand;
c. A folding or telescoping stock; or
d. A shroud attached to the barrel, or that partially or completely encircles the barrel, allowing the bearer to hold the firearm with the nontrigger hand without being burned, but excluding a slide that encloses the barrel; 

Among the rifles outlawed by this legislation:

The Ruger 10/22, with traditional stock and standard 10rd detachable rotary magazine.

The Mossberg Plinkster, shown here in a synthetic pink stock with a standard 10rd detachable box magazine.

The M1 Garand, favorited by collectors and even sold by our government's Civilian Marksmanship Program by the hundreds of thousands. Its 8rd magazine is one of the few detachable magazines properly described as being a “clip”.

The Remington 742 Woodsmaster, prized by deer hunters for the past six decades, has a detachable 4rd box magazine.

THIS RIFLE IS ***NOT*** BANNED UNDER THIS PROPOSED LEGISLATION. THIS IS A BOX-STOCK MARLIN “PAPOOSE” BREAKDOWN RIFLE UTILIZING A DETACHABLE BOX MAGAZINE. NOTE THE LACK OF A FORE-END STOCK.

 Now here's the real kicker.  The Soviet SKS rifle ("Self-loading Carbine, Siminov design") pictured below is actually not affected by the ban.  It does not have a detachable box magazine, as it is intended to be speed-reloaded via stripper clips that do not remain inside the rifle during use.  Its magazine is actually permanently affixed to the rifle, and requires disassembly of the rifle in order to remove or clean it.  In its standard form, prior to modification, it does not have the capacity to accept a detachable magazine.  Its only "assault accessory" that would be affected by the ban is the "barrel shroud", otherwise known as a standard traditional wooden stock...like the other hunting rifles shown above.    Please note the folding blade-type bayonet and rifle-grenade launching flash hider, features not listed in HB545.