
Originally Posted by
Riverine
There's de jure and there's de facto.
De jure, one isn't supposed to mod weapons, but it gets hazy when you're talking about an attachment or something that doesn't involve breaking the thing down past a normal field-strip. If you get some kid that wants to swap the usual receiver endplate for one with a sling attachment, and they manage to get the extension off but don't notice the safety/selector detent spring go zipping off toward the horizon, you end up with issues of one sort or another. That's the sort of event on which the policy is based, a non-armorer tinkering with stuff they don't have detailed knowledge of and without ready access to tools/parts to fix it even if they do. You're setting yourself up for a possible Article 108 charge (willful or negligent damage to gov't property, or whatever the verbiage is) if something breaks.
De facto, you have to be some kind of uniformity-only-for-the-sake-of-uniformity prick (let's face it, no shortage of those...) to gig somebody for changing out a stock, or using personally-purchased Pmags instead of issue mags, or using a BAD...anything that doesn't require significant disassembly and in no way changes how the gun works. Thankfully, they're not the norm. Once you're away from the flagpole, the garrison crap generally goes away, and whatever enhances your operational capabilities or simply makes your ability to operate incrementally more efficient is okay as long as you're not taking a hacksaw to your weapon.
Thankfully, the needless-uniformity jerks are NOT the norm, so things like charging handles, alternate optics, stocks, non-issue magazines, etc. are allowed.
Inevitably, though, personnel changes over at some point, and you may get that asshole 1stSgt who feels that things like beanies (which IS an issue piece of gear, BTW) are comfort items, so he won't allow their wear because he hates the way they look, even if it's under a helmet. Meanwhile, you're out in the field, losing over 80% of your heat through your dome and incurring mild hypothermia because he's an empire-building douchecan.
Point being, the problem is usually more local, and less programmatic.
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