I remember when Obama was first elected, there was a massive blitz of panic buying of guns and ammunition. It was nearly impossible to find 7.62x39 ammunition, or AR-15 or AK style rifles. I saw Romanian WASR-10 rifles (the lowest quality AK-clones) and Bushmaster AR-15s going for upwards of a grand, twice what they’re actually worth. It was insane.
But it has finally subsided. JG Sales rifle page has no fewer than 18 different AK variants available, including several WASRs starting at $449.95, the first reasonable price I’ve seen them going for in nearly half a year. Yugoslavian M70 rifles with an underfolding stock can be had for less than 700. Hungarian AMDs are going for $549.
The AR-15 type rifles are not quite as low but there are still deals to be had for under a grand. Stripped lowers and parts kits are also widely available now.
They even have Norinco SKSs for $369 (without a bayonet, but the bayonet on those things is useless anyway.) $399 gets you one with a bayonet. This price is a little high for SKSs but even still they were totally impossible to find just a few months ago. Everyone should have at least one of these things; they’re incredibly reliable, simple to take apart, and built with a high degree of quality. 7.62x39 ammo can be had for $259 for a case of one thousand rounds. Several months ago these cartridges were as scarce as a hen’s tooth.
A GSG-5, a .22-caliber practice carbine based on the MP5, can be had for $469.
Nazi Mauser rifles can be had from Classic Arms for 200 dollars. These make good hunting rifles. A friend of mine takes white-tails every year with his. 8MM ammo is available from that same site for $249 for 900 rounds - but it is FMJ ammo so please don’t use it to hunt deer. Soft point ammo can be found here.
Military surplus 7.62 NATO (7.62x51) can be found here for high prices but at least it’s widely available. Bear brand .223 is here for $249 for one thousand rounds. Some time ago they were completely off the market.
Take advantage of this time to buy it now; who knows if the prices will go up again.
What was the motive for people buying guns that they expecting to be outlawed? Were they figuring there would be a grandfather clause and they wanted to buy the guns now so they could legally own them later? Did they expect a buyback plan with inflated prices that would allow them to turn in the guns they had just bought for more than they had paid for them? Were they figuring the guns would be illegal so they were buying them in anticipation of having to hide them later? Or were they just stocking up for the revolution?
Last month, while we were in a movie theater waiting for Star Trek to begin, my mom leaned over and whispered to me, “I want to get a gun that can’t get traced back to me.”
“Why?” I asked.
“So when they start coming for people, they won’t know I’m armed.” (Or words to that effect.)
“Mom,” I said. “You can get a gun. But ‘they’ would have tanks.”
“Why do you have to make jokes? Why can’t I have an opinion?”
“Never mind.”
Anyway, it’s hard to explain just how out of the blue and out of character this seemed to me to be, coming from my mom. She’s not a gun owner. I know she had a little experience with them as a youngster, but we’ve never had guns in the house. I know she’s politically conservative and thinks we may see Jesus come down from the clouds in our lifetime. But somehow it never seemed to me that the paranoia ran this deep in her.
When Bush was president my sister wanted to get a gun for much the same reason. I think her reasoning was that if the government was spying on Americans without warrants, she wanted to be able to defend herself against them if they came for her.
I don’t know if she bought one, but she’s very happy about the change in administration.
I hope you are kidding but in case you aren’t, all of those listed are semi-automatic. Automatic weapons are illegal to own. Please try to educate yourself before going off on gun enthusiast.
Totally. Gun enthusiasts, particularly people who collect guns that have historical value, are totally the source of most crime. Which is why the sort of guns in the OP are involved in less than 1 percent of gun crime - that’s just two orders of magnitude away from being all gun crime!
Anyway, to the OP, ammo is still ridiculous. The only reasonably priced rifle I’ve seen is 5.45x39, which works for me since I’m a big fan of the caliber. You can get the legit milsurp russian 7n6 stuff for about $170/1000 now.
You can’t even find common ammo like 9mm or .45 at walmart. One gunshop wanted $22/50 round box of plinker grade 9mm, it’s insane.
I remember not too long ago when the WASRs mentioned in the OP were $180, Norinco SKSes ran what, $150? I got a mauser of much higher quality than the one linked (it was test fired and put in storage - beautiful mint rifle) for around $100 and a box of 1100 rounds of 8mm for $70.
Yes, this is often the case - a grandfather exception for preban guns
My father bought a gun last month - 9 mm Beretta Storm or something. His attitude on the subject seemed to be in the vein of ‘if the world goes to shit, I want a way to protect my family.’ Really, though, I think he mostly just thinks it’s cool. He’s taking me shooting next weekend down at the range, which is good because if we have it, I want to know how to use it.
I confess I never saw the ramp-up in price, nor the lack of availability, in either guns or ammunition that others reported. All stores around here, including ones like Wal-Mart, seemed unaffected. Perhaps prices went up $1 a box or so, but I attributed that to profiteering in a bad economy.
I would like to blame Obama for the insane prices of ammunition but I just can’t. From what I can tell it is pretty much the same type of people who panicked during Y2K who is responsible for the price increase/shortage.
By the same type of people I mean the uneducated or easy to manipulate crowd. I say this with members of my own family included unfortunately.
Yeah, a lot of people who will say they’re in favor of gun control get uneasy when lawmakers start talking about confiscating private property. Much easy to pass a law that just outlaws things in the future, and let the current stock slowly decline.
