Can Customizing Your Carry Gun Get You in Trouble?

Guns are like cars. Some people buy a car, drive it every day, and, other than regular maintenance, never change a thing about it. Others buy muscle cars and Jeeps and trick them out as street racers or off-road beasts. Some changes are purely cosmetic, while others significantly improve performance.
The same is true of guns. Some people buy a gun, carry and shoot it regularly, and other than cleaning it, never change a thing about it. In contrast, others buy guns and dedicate a lot of money and effort to personalize them to meet their tastes and needs. Like cars, some modifications are cosmetic, like custom finishes and cool trimmings. Others, like triggers and match barrels, improve the gun’s accuracy and general shootability.

Customizing your car doesn’t have any downsides other than the cost and maybe attracting the attention of police on the highway, and it can have some real benefits. The same is true of customizing or modifying your carry gun. Done right, customizing a gun can improve both performance and enhance that ever-critical coolness factor. However, there is one potential downside. If you use that gun in a defensive shooting, will the customization work against you during the inevitable investigation and possible court hearings?
I am not an attorney, and I am in no way providing legal advice. What I’m doing is offering some food for thought so you can consider this topic for yourself.

Types of Customizations

Let’s start by establishing what it means to customize or modify a gun. There are two types of customizations: functional and cosmetic.

Functional

Functionally customizing a gun involves making modifications to improve how the gun functions. Some modifications are inside the gun and are not readily visible. Things like a lighter, smoother trigger or a match-grade barrel. Others, like custom slides, flared magazine wells, and ported barrels, are readily visible to a casual observer.

Cosmetic

Cosmetic customizations are purely for looks. Examples are custom finishes, engraved slogans, and symbols like Punisher skulls. For the most part, they add nothing to the function of the firearm. They just look cool. Some custom finishes can improve a gun’s resistance to moisture, corrosion, and scratches.

The Potential Issues of Customizations

Most gun owners, even if they are not hardcore shooting sports enthusiasts, understand the reasons behind doing modifications to firearms, either functional or cosmetic. Just as customizing a car makes it perform and look better, modifying a gun has the same benefits.

The potential problems arise when dealing with people who are not gun fans or even supporters of the right to self-defense. Statistics regarding gun ownership are approximate since surveys may not correctly reflect ownership numbers for many reasons. Current studies point toward about 40% of all Americans owning a gun and about 45% of all households having at least one gun in it. That seems like a lot until you consider that it leaves around 50 to 60% of the population not owning a gun or knowing much about them.

That number of non-gun owners includes a significant number of people who may have a liberal mindset that adheres to the philosophy that no one should own a gun or have the right to defend themselves. Depending on where you live, these folks could comprise half or more of a jury. Factor in liberal prosecuting attorneys who are soft on criminals but hard on legally armed citizens, and the problem becomes evident. Even many police officers, who should know better, don’t understand why someone would carry a customized gun.

Prosecutors and the media have a habit of seeking to portray armed citizens who shoot a criminal in self-defense as vigilantes, or at least a person who was looking for an opportunity to shoot someone. In a case like that, modifications of a carry gun can be used to further that impression in court. Both Kyle Rittenhouse and George Zimmerman were fortunate that their guns were not modified. Of course, some modifications have a greater potential for issues than others.

Functional Modifications

Some functional modifications can be more easily justified than others. A smoother trigger and match-grade barrel make it easier to shoot a gun accurately. That can be presented as your desire to minimize the chances of missing the criminal who is assaulting you and hitting an innocent bystander.

Even a ported barrel or compensator could be justified on the basis that it makes the gun easier to control, which again reduces the chances of wild shots hitting something other than the perpetrator. On the other hand, given that anti-2A types are frightened by flash suppressors and pistol grips on MSRs, as witnessed by gun laws in places like California and New York, it might be a tough sell.

Some accessories like laser sights, optics, and weapon lights are less of a problem. All of these are becoming very common on carry guns. They also have the benefit of improving accuracy and enabling the person using the gun to see their surroundings more clearly. It can even be said that a bright weapon light provides a non-lethal means of potentially resolving a situation without having to pull the trigger.

Ultimately, any visible functional modification of a handgun will make it look more exotic than an average-looking gun like an off-the-shelf P365 or Glock. This could influence a prosecutor to try to claim a lawful defensive shooting was actually the culmination of a vigilante philosophy and potentially sway a jury.

Cosmetic Modifications

Cosmetic customizations can be even more problematic than functional ones. A Punisher symbol and a finish that looks like spattered blood potentially paints a picture of a gun owner who revels in violence—someone who was looking for an excuse to shoot someone.

Some slogans are probably better left off your carry gun. Things like “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery,” or worse yet, “I don’t call 911,” send the wrong message entirely during the investigation of a defensive shooting. Death head skulls and snarling faces might also be construed as something scary by jurors who do not own guns. I once saw a handgun that had the end of the slide modified into a snarling demon’s mouth. It looked like something out of a bad movie, and I can only imagine how a prosecutor would have described anyone who carried it.

Guns with pink, purple, or camouflaged finishes have become very common in recent years, and I don’t think they are something to worry about. My wife and I prefer basic black for our handguns, but if you like colors, there’s very little reason to be concerned. Likewise, basic decorative engraving probably isn’t going to send too negative a message.

Just as with visible functional modifications, any cosmetic customization will make your gun stand out from the crowd, both in and out of a courtroom. It would be wise to consider what you put on your carry gun before you do it.

Confiscation

There is another drawback to carrying a customized gun. It is not uncommon for the police to confiscate any gun involved in a shooting as evidence, whether it is justified or not. This is bad enough when it’s your well-used G19, but it would really hurt if it was your customized Wilson Combat EDC X9 with a base price of around $3,200. Especially when owners often wait months to get their guns back even if they are not charged with any crime. If they are charged, and their case goes to court, they may never see it again, even if they are cleared. Although this situation doesn’t fall into the category of a modified gun creating legal problems, it is nevertheless painful on several levels.

The Bottom Line

The decision whether to modify your carry gun functionally or cosmetically is yours and yours alone. There are no laws preventing legal modifications, legal being specific to your location. Most functional modifications, particularly those that are internal, are not a serious concern. They can often be justified as making the gun safer, more accurate, and easier to control in a stressful situation. All things that point to the gun owner as a responsible person.

The same goes for common accessories like lasers, optics, and gun lights. They improve accuracy and can reduce the chances of harm to bystanders. They are also becoming very common, which reduces how much they make a gun stand out from other guns.

That leaves cosmetic modifications like slogans, hardcore finishes like those that resemble splattered blood, and icons of death skulls and Punisher symbols as the greatest potential problems. A gun owner should be able to put any type of cosmetic customization they want on their gun, and in practice, they can.

Unfortunately, the culture in America has reached a point where prosecuting attorneys are more likely to aggressively prosecute a law-abiding citizen who defends him or herself than they are many criminals. As I said at the beginning of this article, I am not giving legal guidance, nor am I telling you not to customize your carry gun. That is your decision. But it would be wise to give some thought to what you put on your gun and how you modify it before you do it.

Much will depend on where you live. Someone living in or near a large population center with a liberal government has greater reason for concern than someone living in a more reasonable area. If you are a member of an organization that provides self-defense liability insurance, such as USCCA or US Law Shield (and you should be), you can always talk to them before adding cosmetic customization to your gun to see what advice they have. Speaking with an attorney friend who is also a gun owner is another option.
Think of it sort of like getting a new tattoo. It looks really cool, but is it something you really want on your EDC gun for everyone to see?