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“Instead of outright banning it, allow people to have some kind of licensing. I think it would weed out a lot of crime.” – X-Products co-owner James Malarkey, quoted in Gun sales drive demand for high capacity magazines [via money.cnn.com]

[h/t HB]

Blue Force Gear

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89 COMMENTS

    • I read the article. I would bet money that quote was taken out of contest.

      The cnn article clearly has an agenda. And it’s not to strentghen the 2nd Ammendment.

      • In the article it actually talks about how the aurora shooter used a “high capacity drum like this one”. If I remember correctly, his rifle jammed, likely saving many lives.

        Am I correct?

        • The Aurora shooter used a 100 round magazine, as I recall, but I do not remember the manufacturer. I also recall that at some point it jammed his AR, as they have been frequently reported to do, and he switched to backup weapons, which may or may not have affected the final body count since he essentially had fish in a barrel.

        • It was Surefire.

          FWIW, that both 60-round, and especially 100-round, Surefire mags are prone to jamming, is widely known.

        • As far as can remember, that is correct. A drum mag is hard to conceal, heavy and difficult to reload. When it jammed he transitioned to his shotgun. The fact that guns where available to Holmes actually may very well have saved lives,. Statistical outlier or not, if he had not had guns to dazzle him he may very well have spent more time developing his bombs and then who knows how many people he could have killed, like the Boston marathon assholes, taking the guns out of the equequations not fix the problem, it magnifies it in certain cases. I don’t know many civilians who carry around an EOD kit.

        • ^^^THIS. The 5th was added for a reason, as in, “I plead the 5th”, or as my more direct comrades would likely put it “F**k off, parasite. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

      • This is a reply from an email I sent out to them letting them know we were not happy.

        Troy,

        First and Foremost our company does not believe in licensing or restricting the sale of High Cap.

        Mr Malarkey was interviewed about several items in a long discussion during Shot Show and CNN has taken two very out of context answers to multiple questions. Then they broke them up and spliced it into something that cleverly seems to favor some kind of support for their premise.

        Mr Malarkey regrets having ever discussed/interviewed with CNN at all, and will not do so in the future. This is clearly not a position X Products believes is rational or viable.

        We support the 2nd amendment rights of all citizens and are already saddled with bans of our products in multiple states now, we would not support any further limitations.

        Dewey Akers
        VP of Sales & Operations

        • Yet your pres said you would accept licensing, please your back-pedal hurts my ankles.

          We aren’t that stupid. Try again.

    • Yep, X-Products is now officially on my “never buy from” list. Never, ever forget those among us who would turn against us.

    • Just so you guys know my side of the story, the quote below is completely out of context and not what I said at all. The interview I had was 30 minutes long and I was asked a variety of questions and they just took bits and pieces from the segment. The only thing I said was I would consider a step licensing law where we had access to everything… But it was the only thing I’d consider as a middle ground if there were no other options, I didn’t agree that we need licensing. That’s down right nuts, I’m a magazine manufacture, it would be detrimental to my business, I already lived through through the 1994-2004 ban , I like you don’t want to go through it again.

      You’ve got to remember this is mainstream media, they manipulate the story to fit their agenda. Heck they didn’t even quote our company’s location properly.

      Let me know if have any other questions and please feel free to share my response.

      • Repeat after me, sir:

        Talking to the main stream media is ALWAYS a bad idea.

        You won’t change their minds, you won’t advance our cause, you won’t convert anyone to our side.

        What you WILL do is lend your name, face, and business reputation to the very people who hate you and want to destroy you, for them to use as they see fit to reduce the freedom of every American.

        This will hurt your bottom line, and rightly so.

        You’ve been in this game a long time, and are a grown ass man.

        You should know better.

      • You mean licensing where, like, the govt gets to decide what I’m allowed to buy? The same govt the 2nd Amendment was written for? I’m not sure “middle ground” means what you think it means…

      • I’m going to take Mr. Malarkey’s side here because: 1) cool heads need to prevail; and 2) nothing in his company’s business practices indicates he or any of X-Products’ leadership believes in licensing or restricting ownership. I presume if they did, he would not sell his products on Brownells.

        Gun makers and owners do need to talk to the mainstream media. Jarret Mock in this video and story hit all the right points and said them clearly. Yes, we are treated unfairly (Obama in the same video speaks of “ammunition clips” with no penalty), but the alternative is we surrender the field. Every gun company and organization needs to have a trained, telegenic spokesperson who speaks with transparency, humor, and assuredness. We need to be twice as good to get half the consideration.

        As to point #1, my my, we’re an ornery bunch. You want to hang X-Products for heresy and the sin of consorting with the media? Your choice. Malarkey said he was edited out of context and based on his company’s practices, I see no reason to disbelieve him. (However, Mr. Malarkey, please repeat after me: “high capacity is not anything over ten rounds.”) Yes, he gave gun grabbers ammunition and for that, I hope he learns. But let’s remember who the real enemy is here. Every time we savage a fellow POTG, we deplete our ranks and make other gun manufacturers reluctant to deal with the public. That’s where the battle is, folks. Sorry it’s not quite as cushy there as it is in your task chair.

    • Yeah why do this? I mean, simply being a semi competent business man, what do you think will happen to your sales if you require people to obtain licenses before purchasing your product? Gun owners being as private as they generally are aside, even if you were to require licenses to buy hotdogs your sales would go down. Its basic economics 101. The more hurdles you put in between your customer and the end goal (obtaining the product that they desire) the less people are going to be willing to jump those hurdles to get that product. This guy is about to be out of a job if they have any type of board oversight or stock holder accountability.

      • This is unfortunate. He is desperately trying to find some way to prevent the government from restricting the sale of what should be a Constitutionally protected and full legal product and has instead found a way to piss off his intended customers so that they will not buy his product.

        Let’s hope he reads this site and we at least gets an “Oops, sorry! Spoke before the brain was in gear” retraction, for whatever good it will do him.

  1. Banning high capacity magazines will only strengthen the black market for firearms. Especially as 3D printing becomes more commonplace.

    • I think he might have meant the people that would refuse to turn in their high capacity magazines, not necessarily shootings.

      • I think he meant exactly what he said. How he’s been left in charge of anything but a hotdog cart is beyond me.

        I do however believe that you have correctly identified his excuse as he walks that statement back.

    • Yeah i can’t seem to find anything other than the once in a blue moon (aurora) incident where anything other than a standard capacity magazine was used. Crime is generally not committed with rifles, even less so with rifles that are compatible with the X-products magazines, and even less criminals go out of there way to purchase a bulky jammomatic that these hi-cap mags tend to be.

    • I think he implied that people who break the law would follow the laws regarding his product.

      IMO it would just be easier to license criminals. get caught doing crime? got a license? no license = on the spot execution.

  2. “Any magazine over 10 rounds is high capacity”.. Moron! if a gun is designed with a 20 or 30 round mag in mind, then that amount is standard. I despise Fudds, I will never buy any of this idiots products.

    • It’s hard to find the words to describe the level of painfully stupid that statement is. Let alone that they let this meat puppet actually speak in front of a camera as a company rep.

      Talk about suicidal companies.

      • Not that it will save them, but I would expect a huge apology from the company in the next few hours. Their customer base happens to be one of the most anti license and pro privacy demographics in the world and they just let this meat head tell them they should need to license up to buy a bigger box with a spring at the bottom.

  3. You mean so we can be subject to retroactive confiscation as per San Fran Cisco? Pass, this guy only seems concerned about moving as much product as possible for as long as he can.

    • The guy said “a high capacity magazine is anything that’s over 10 rounds.” I bet CNN paid him a little extra just for that soundbite alone. My state has mag capacity limit of 15 rounds, so I’m not in the market for anything larger than that. But if I was, I sure as hell wouldn’t buy it from X-Products.

    • I’m sorry I gave them my business last year…I’m going to be replacing my slins with Magpul…I like them when they came out but figured I had it covered…time to give Magpul more of my business.

  4. Some people will never learn. If you throw your friends to the wolves the only thing you accomplish is being eaten last. The gun grabbers hate this guy just as much as they do the rest of us, they will use him for what they need and throw him out like trash.

  5. Simple Definition of infringe

    : to do something that does not obey or follow (a rule, law, etc.) ( chiefly US )

    : to wrongly limit or restrict (something, such as another person’s rights)

  6. “You told me you were going to try to limit this, so just on principle I’m going to go to buy one.’ [says Mock.”]

    That’s how coercion works. When an organism views an act upon it as being coercive, then the organism will seek to act out or fight back.

    Behavior is lawful and orderly, folks.

  7. According to CNN ‘anyone who’s not a felon can buy a bulletproof vest’? What, do you have to fill out a 4473 buy body armor?

    • They want to make illegal a purely defensive item because somebody may use it while committing a crime. That has to be one of the dumbest arguments I’ve ever heard.

      • “They want to make illegal a purely defensive item because somebody may use it while committing a crime. That has to be one of the dumbest arguments I’ve ever heard.”

        Remember the North Hollywood bank robbery-shootout?

        • They had a little more than the typical body armor you can buy. Besides, if you’re going to pursue that kind of logic we need to ban cars, baseball bats, knives, etc. Anything that has ever been used in a violent crime must be banned. For the children.

    • Not exactly, but I’m pretty sure they run you through NCIC in Cal when buying from a dealer anyway.

      Can’t own body armor as a felon in that state.

      • I went and looked it up and it’s actually Federal law – 18 USCA sec 931. There are sentencing enhancements that kick in if you use it while committing most crimes as well.

        Learn something new everyday…

        • So if you’re a VIOLENT felon it’s a federal crime to possess body armor, but unless you’re in California it’s enforced by the honor system. Brilliant! You can trust violent felons to obey a law they probably have no idea exists.

  8. The Navy Yard shooter did not use a standard capacity magazine. The shooter used a pump shotgun with a five round magazine he turned into an SBS. So much for accuracy in media.

  9. I regularly hear “They license drivers and register cars and no one thinks there’s anything wrong with it. Why not gun owners and guns?” If Congress debated seizing everyones cars every year, we would have a flood of unlicensed drivers and unregistered cars. EVERY gun license or registration scheme has aways been followed up by more and more oppressive regulations. NEVER GIVE AN INCH!
    Also “Compromise” does not been always giving something up and never getting anything back. Passing a minor gun law instead of a major one is not compromise! When the Pres issues an executive order that’s not so bad, we all breath a sigh of relief. It still moved the ball further down the field towards his goal. NEVER GIVE AN INCH!

  10. “… allowing people to have some kiind of kicensing. I think it would weed out a lot of crime. criminalize a lot of otherwise lawful people.”

    There. Fixed it.

    The point of making intrusive, ineffective laws is to criminakize people who disagree with you. The point is not reducing the “criminal” behavior, or even what we gain from less of that. The point is making what they prefer harder (just cause you don’t like it), making a way to extort people you don’t like (prosecuting enemies for mag violations, while yr friends get a pass even waving one about on T V), and driving them outside polite society with a label. All else is misdirection.

  11. Another company started by money grubbers that do not represent their core market. Let this one burn to the ground and die in bankruptcy. Perhaps someone without their head ensconced firmly inside their rectum will purchase the assets and try again.

    Not one more inch.

  12. Another useful Fudd idiot who just ruined his business. I would imagine that he thinks that enough government agencies will buy his stuff if he stiffs the private consumer. Colt thought the same thing as well.

  13. I looked at the article and it looks like Mr. Malarkey realy needed to practice. Would it have been that hard to say, “Standard capacity magazine availability does not affect crime rates. Some easily scared people want to ban them so they feel better. Id prefer licensing to banning.” Was it really that hard?

  14. I really don’t care for those drums, but that statement was stupid. Does he even understand his market?

    As a CT resident living with a stupid mag ban, FLAME DELETED

  15. I dunno, maybe he’s aiming at the high-end, Mark Kelley, “guns for me and my well-heeled associates but not for the hoi polloi” market. Maybe there are enough of them to support his business. Or maybe he’s just a “realist” ( or “defeatist”, depending on your POV) who figures “licensing” is the lesser of the inevitable “evils” out there. I was surprised at the article, BTW–gave a lot of ink to gun-rights types, didn’t quote Everytown or the action-deprived “moms” or any of their ilk at all. From CNN, at that.

  16. Thanks! Without this I would have spent a few hundred dollars on their awesome drums and an upper. With friends like these, right?

  17. I’d like to know the background behind this quote. I’m guessing it was Quote-Mined with a misleading setup, considering it’s CNN.

  18. Their skeletonized magazines are dumb. Why would I want to risk getting dirt/mud or garbage on my ammo and in my magazine?

  19. Out of all the things on the gun control wish list, arbitrary magazine capacity limits are currently the least enforceable. I could print out a half dozen on my low-end 3-D printer each day. While they won’t be close to MagPul in reliability, they will easily put 30 rounds down range and I won’t be worried about picking it up after I slap in a fresh mag.

  20. I’m not ready to boycott Malarkey and X-Products just yet. As a couple others said above, that quote could have been mined pretty well out of a longer sentence or discussion, maybe one where they were giving him the Sophie’s Choice between licensing or banning. The wording definitely makes him look bad, but I’m not going to jump on him until I see him say it on video.

    Maybe I’m just on his side because I’ve bought two side-charging uppers from him and have had fantastic customer service. When they upgraded their website it messed up the purchasing system and didn’t give you an option to put in a coupon code that I would normally use to get a significant military discount. I called, spoke to James himself, and he immediately refunded me the extra money I paid by not getting the discount. He also went through the purchase system himself while on the phone with me to see where the problem was, found it, and told me the webmaster would be fixing it shortly.

    But if he really wants to license owners of drum mags, well, then I have a place he can stick it. I’ll just buy any future side-charging uppers from Gibbz.

    • Doesn’t matter.

      He was dumb enough to talk to CNN and expect to be treated fairly.

      That decision alone should cost him business.

      The damned fool.

  21. I hope CNN took him way out of context in some weird way. But I can’t see how they could have.

    I checked X-Products’ social media channels and they haven’t said a word yet. I understand it’s Sunday and all but still…

    That being said, we have Magpul, Surefire, and others to serve our magazine needs. Magpul put their money where their mouth was and left a state that proved unfriendly to their business.

  22. So is everyone here saying they would prefer a complete ban of high capacity mags?

    It would appear that the question was whether you’d prefer a complete ban of high capacity magazines to a licensing system. Obviously this is a crappy question for CNN to ask, but this is what CNN does to sell a story. I looked at the response the owner gave on ARFCOM to the story and he explained that CNN printed this way out of context.

    • No one wants a ban, of course.

      We just don’t see the point in licensing a chunk of plastic in steel just because it can hold more of something than another chunk of plastic and steel.

      The Feds can’t even keep track of their own inventory of guns and magazines – how the hell does one expect them to keep track of hundreds of millions, maybe even over a billion, magazines in civilian possession.

      Also, a 30-round magazine that “does the job” for an AR can be 3D-printed at home these days.

    • Of course not. It’s a false choice. “If you had to choose between…..” The proper thing to do is to not allow yourself to get drawn into that game. We don’t have to choose between those two things, we can work to correct law and legislators. And ultimately, we can choose to ignore laws that were unconstitutional at the very moment of their passage, and therefore null and void.

  23. just returned to ask why folks keep attributing that “high-capacity is anything more than 10 rounds” to to the serendipitously-named Mr. Malarkey. As I read the article, the CNN reporters made that statement, not him. Did he make the comment in the accompanying video which won’t play for me?

  24. Given the business owner’s response buried in the comments, and how much attention that story will draw (most of which will miss that response), I think you owe him an opportunity to tell his side before he gets crucified.

  25. The following was posted on the official xproducts instagram in response to me.

    “Just so you guys know my side of the story, the quote below is completely out of context and not what I said at all. The interview I had was 30 minutes long and I was asked a variety of questions and they just took bits and pieces from the segment. The only thing I said was I would consider a step licensing law where we had access to everything… But it was the only thing I’d consider as a middle ground if there were no other options, I didn’t agree that we need licensing. That’s down right nuts, I’m a magazine manufacture, it would be detrimental to my business, I already lived through through the 1994-2004 ban , I like you don’t want to go through it again. You’ve got to remember this is mainstream media, they manipulate the story to fit they’re agenda. Heck they didn’t even quote our company’s location properly. Let me know if have any other questions and pleas feel free to share my response.”

    In my opinion there is only so much out of context that can be done, the words were said and I do not understand any circumstances in which they’re appropriate. At the very least he is misinformed and not well spoken, at the worst he is an anti gunner trying to make a buck off us “dumb gun people who need to be on a watch list”

    • I think the Feds need to pass a law where all recording of any interviews done by the news services MUST be released in their entirety to the interviewees.

  26. Maybe he should consider changing his name.
    ma·lar·key also ma·lar·ky (mə-lär′kē)
    n. Slang
    Exaggerated or foolish talk, usually intended to deceive

  27. They better start up some serious damage control or watch the company disappear. They make a good product but so do a number of others.

  28. I emailed X Products based on this post. Here’s the response I received a few minutes ago.

    Greg,

    First and Foremost our company does not believe in licensing or restricting the sale of High Cap.

    Mr Malarkey was interviewed about several items in a long discussion during Shot Show and CNN has taken two very out of context answers to multiple questions. Then they broke them up and spliced it into something that cleverly seems to favor some kind of support for their premise.

    Mr Malarkey regrets having ever discussed/interviewed with CNN at all, and will not do so in the future. This is clearly not a position X Products believes is rational or viable.

    We support the 2nd amendment rights of all citizens and are already saddled with bans of our products in multiple states now, we would not support any further limitations.

    Dewey Akers
    VP of Sales & Operations

    • Thank you for this, Dewey (and thanks, Greg, for getting and posting it). A reminder: “high capacity” means more than 30 rounds. 30 rounds is “standard capacity.” 10 rounds is “low capacity,” “restricted capacity,” or “handicapped.” A suggestion for your next brand standards guide.

  29. Just read this article and I’m disgusted that any gun or firearm accessory maker would forget S & W’s mid 90s fiasco with Bill and Hillary. Glad to say that I currently have none of their products on hand. After looking over the X-Products line I now see they have no products that I would want to enrich the owners.

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