My newly carbinized G19 / open carry opinion

Dear GTers,

It has been six years since I bought my one and only gun, a G19. Here it is very difficult for John Q Taxpayer to own anything resembling a rifle, so I worked around this by pimping up my G19 with a "carbine conversion kit", i.e. a plastic box made by CAA Tactical, the RONI G-1, as it is called. Turning a pistol into an SBR in this manner doesn't require any additional paperwork, and the kit is completely unregulated. No actual modifications are made on the gun.


The scope is a Meprolight MEPRO 21 reflex sight. The gun shoots very nicely once you get the scope zeroed, although the kit still doesn't remedy the heavy Glock trigger. It is the best pimping I have managed to arrange for the G19, which makes it an even more versatile gun. I'm not sure yet if the gun keeps its zero each time it is taken down and reassembled - will test on the range and report.

That said, the only reason I bought the kit was for some fun on the range. Although there is no law forbidding me from openly carrying my G19 thus carbinized in public, I don't want to do so for a few reasons:

1. The public here in Israel is accustomed to seeing civilians carrying unloaded military rifles, not loaded pistols with stock attachments. The kit is too out of the ordinary and conspicuous, for a person who is not on duty in some security or paramilitary capacity. In most urban settings in Israel, seeing armed security is not unusual, and I don't want to alarm possibly ignorant security guards or government agents, however legal I might be.

2. My pistol is licensed for self defense, and although such a kit might improve the pistol's worth for defending its owner, it might be construed by a zealous prosecutor as overkill if used for self defense.

3. While I don't maintain strict concealment all the time, I do not like to draw too much attention to my being a "shooter" before an uninitiated and unknown public.

4. Recreational shooting outside firing ranges is almost nonexistent in Israel, so if carried, it would only be for self defense, and for that I prefer the convenience of a pistol.

This situation may change, but for now I feel more comfortable in public carrying my pistol loaded in a conventional holster and the carbine conversion kit in a bag, hidden from view, when en route to a range and back.

As for other carbine conversions, getting a Mechtech kit for the G19 would involve a huge amount of paperwork and bureaucratic begging, which I don't want to go through now. The pistol licensing system here is very restrictive, and my thought is that this carbine kit was developed because it is a way of carrying a quasi-long gun by non-government agencies and individuals in backward countries where civilians are not allowed to own rifles. By the way the company that is making them cannot manufacture enough to meet the demand.

Thoughts would be welcome. Sorry for the poor picture - should be able to do better ones later.

 

It's an ambidextrous plastic cocking handle. It wraps around the rear of the slide with a hole cut out for the rear sight, and has internal grooves that dovetail with the vertical serrations of the slide. No tools required for assembly or removal.

For the importer: it's getting State Department approval for the export, then waiting half a year.
For the gun owner: when attempting to register another barrel of the same caliber on the license of an existing gun, the Ministry of Interior (gun licensing authority) may demand a profound explanation of why the gun owner NEEDS another 9mm barrel, plus will ask him to provide additional paperwork proving that he still fulfills the criterion for which he was licensed to own a handgun in the process. In my case it is as a reserve LEO, but nowadays the criterion has been abolished and my gun and its license were grandfathered in. But fortunately after you own a gun for 10 years, you no longer need to prove your ownership criterion for making any license change (replacement, adding barrels, tri-annual license renewal). Bummer.

 

Fortunately you can, but you are only allowed to own one at a time.

 

Most military people are required to carry their rifles empty while off duty and not on "hazardous duty". People presumed to be carrying long guns of military issue are presumed to be doing so lawfully (M1 Carbine, M16A1/A2, M4, CAR-15, Galil SAR, Tavor), particularly when they are unloaded and a regulation sling is used. The public is accustomed to seeing them. An openly carried AK in civilian hands would attract a lot of attention, just to give an example.