Have ARs gone up in price? Used or new?
There is currently more than enough supply of AR-15’s for the market demand. Prices are lower the last few years than they have been previously, and the overall quality level has risen. The industry has gone through quite a bit of change and where Colt used to only have 1 or 2 competitors with a quality product 30 years ago, there are literally dozens of manufacturers that can directly compete against Colt. That has forced prices down.
My opinion is that Colt is suspending civilian sales for a few reasons - retasking production capacity to FMS orders, inability to demand huge profit margins like they used to, maybe some SJW posturing, etc. Colt has been struggling as a company for a long time and my impression is that they are not run by “gun guys”.
If anything they have gone down.
They are so easy to customize that its cheaper to buy a lower and put the things in you want.
When Colt ended the Python, you could see the handwriting on the wall.
I always wanted a Python!