Steve at the Firearms Blog covers what appears to be the firearms bubble bursting. In any bubble you will tend to have speculators. If many of the people buying up AR-15s were doing it in anticipation of selling at higher post-ban prices, then the industry will go through some very tough times as those speculators sell their inventory and cut their losses. If they were mostly new shooters, well, one thing about AR-15s is they are like Lays Potato Chips. You can’t just have one. If I were betting money (also known as investing) I would probably err on the side of believing there were speculators, and there will be a lot of guns and ammo on the market as people cut their losses. I think the firearms industry will be in for some tough times, though I expect parts of it to continue doing well.
8 thoughts on “Bursting Bubbles”
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Totally agree on the firearms manufacturers heading for tough times. Ammo manufacturers, on the other hand, may be seeing a newer, higher normal. You might only buy one gun “just in case,” but chances are you’re going to shoot it every now and then. If there are several hundred thousand new gun owners, that translates to a lot of new and somewhat regular ammo consumers. That, and military and law enforcement needs are likely to remain super high for the foreseeable future. Also, homeland security grants are nice bits of pork that allow tiny police departments to get all sorts of cool guns and ammo. So they’ve got that going for them. Which is nice.
I’ve been waiting for the bubble to pop. When the prices get so low that they are handing them out with every slurpee at the local stop-n-rob, I’ll buy.
I agree with Ed about the ammo. I think it will be a long time before ammo comes down.
I’m waiting for Sugarmann, Helmke, and the NYT to cover this.
If it is a bubble bursting, I should be able to pick up an EBR cheap
Once M1A’s become available at the local big box stores again I’ll really feel the bubble has burst. $1400+ is still too much to pay for one, though.
If we ever get out of the Middle East ammo might finally go down…but not till then.
Met a lady at the range the other day with her teenage daughter. I asked if her husband was a shooter, and she laughed. “Well,” she said, “after Obama was elected he started buying guns. Lots of guns. You know, as an investment. He doesn’t shoot them, but I sure do!”
The daughter laughed too, and added that her dad always got all hot and bothered when he bought a new firearm and they took it out to the range to play with it.
There’s another possibility.
More and more people are beginning to wake up to Obama’s plans for America, they don’t like what they see, but they didn’t have the $$$$ to buy EBRs at Obubble prices.
Now more of them will be able to afford firearms, and will buy them at the lower prices.
+1 to Mariner. I suspect there might be a second bump as people who watched the first spike happen will grab up a few pieces when they hit a price point that they think is reasonable.
Certainly the Bubble got me wringing my hands that I’d never bought an AK. I’m not a huge fan of the platform, but it’s a respectable rifle and I wouldn’t mind a representative in the armory. But I just assumed they’d always be cheap and plentiful.
Now that the price is going back down I may find myself forced to grab one on the way down before the next bubble hits.