Jon Stokes has written about Smart Guns technology for the tech blog TechCrunch (warning: his article is a political, this blog post is not). He brings up an excellent point: to what extent are guns designed around laws, rather than the what the market or gun designers would prefer. Jon writes …

As long as we live in a world where a millimeter of barrel length separates a highly restricted “short-barreled rifle” from a regular rifle, and where a plastic gun handle is willfully misidentified as a dangerous aid for mass killers — in other words, where people who know zero about firearms nonetheless continue to design them through legislation — smart gun technology will be a bona fide existential threat to non-smart-guns, and people who don’t want to buy smart guns will do everything they can to strangle the technology in the cradle.

If you asked the average gun enthusiast (myself included) what guns they would own if there were no laws preventing or restricting ownership of certains guns, most likely they would tell you machine guns, short barreled rifles, suppressors, short barreled shotguns, Russian Dragunov SVD rifle etc. In other words: everything!

The question is, what would we actually be buying if all restrictions were dropped tomorrow without fear of them coming back, and more specifically, what would gun designers be designing if they had no legal restrictions.

Would Glock start designing fully automatic machine pistols? Would people start buying machine pistols for self-defense rather than just for fun at the range?

Would the Russian Dragunov SVD rifles become popular? Or would the novelty wear off quickly.

Would 14″ become the new 16″ for rifle barrels?

Would MAC-10 machine guns sales continue, or would they plummet in value and people start buying fully automatic MP5s instead?

What would home defense shotguns look like? 12″ barrels, drum magazines and fully automatic? Or would pump action 18″ barrels still reign supreme?

Let us know in the comments would you think would be the most popular gun products in a future where everything is legal.