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Posted on 02/02/2022 6:53:38 AM PST by Heartlander
Last year, the Biden Administration banned the further import of Russian-made ammunition into the United States. After a subdued press release, which announced the ban was punishment for Russia’s poisoning of the anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow, the entire issue was shelved. Today, no one in the administration is touting the success of this initiative in getting Russia to behave itself. Which is bizarre, given Russia’s excellent behavior since then.
In reality, the Russian ammo embargo is a sanction on Americans, not Russians, and it is working exactly as intended. It was necessary because banning guns, a consistent objective of our government over the last 100 years, has proven extremely difficult.
For example, after the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, Connecticut banned assault rifles (or banned them more—a less stringent ban was already in place). A Connecticut rifle selling for $1,000 suddenly cost $3,000 because it was a “preban.” The new law proscribed any rifle or pistol that had more than a single item from a list of evil features, including a pistol grip, bayonet lugs, an adjustable stock, a flash suppressor, or a detachable magazine. As a result, items such as 60-year-old World War II carbines became illegal in the state.
But it wasn’t long before someone figured out that attaching a vertical forward grip and a pistol brace to an AR-15 could allow it legal classification as neither a rifle nor a pistol, but an “other” (which is an actual category in federal firearms law). And so, for the moment at least, Connecticut legislators are again on the back foot, and there are plenty of AR-15 “others” on the shelves.
Connecticut can always propose more stringent laws, of course, but the Supreme Court may then feel compelled to step in. California’s high-capacity magazine ban, which was overturned by a U.S. District Court and again by a three-judge federal panel, was recently upheld by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and will no doubt end up before the Supreme Court, with the potential to strike down every high-capacity ban in the country.
If the government is to wean Americans off their stubborn attachment to firearms, therefore, a more thoughtful and insidious approach is necessary, such as was used in getting rid of smoking: They didn’t make cigarettes illegal, they just banned advertising, banned smoking in most places, and, above all, taxed tobacco to create a massive and artificial increase in prices.
If you make cigarettes more expensive, people will smoke less. If you make gasoline more expensive, people will drive less. And if you make ammunition more expensive, people will shoot less. It doesn’t matter how many guns you have if you can’t get bullets.
Following the pandemic and then Biden’s inauguration, ammunition prices skyrocketed to historic levels. The price of .22-caliber ammunition that used to cost around four cents a round is now around 10 cents. Pistol ammunition reached almost $1 a round, if you could find it at all. Common rifle calibers cost even more, and anything even slightly exotic has disappeared completely.
All this was beginning to abate when the Biden team came out with their Russian ammo announcement. Russia’s non-reloadable steel-case ammo is a huge part of the bargain-basement segment of shooting, which is all anyone can afford at the moment. The hundred or so cheapest options for any common caliber are all Russian. Delete those, and the price of shooting will immediately double again.
Americans might turn to hand-loading their own ammunition, only to find that the raw components aren’t available. Only four American companies, three owned by the same holding group, manufacture primers domestically. As a result, these critical components cost almost 100 times what they did before the pandemic. These established ammunition companies are delighted with the profits, and see no need to drive down prices with any dramatic increase in capacity. But in pursuing their natural desire to maintain a near-monopoly on the industry, their interests have aligned with the anti-gun crowd.
We need new, independent, domestic end-to-end ammunition plants, and right away. It’s expensive to set one up, which is why there aren’t more in business. But the market is there, the unit economics feasible, and America will thank you.
This is the Eric Holder model. A quick search of YouTube will find the comments made in a public forum going back to the beginning of his tenure under Obama.
Considering we're now in the third-term of Obama, with all the same names and faces pulling on Joe's strings, this should come as no surprise.
There are several new primer plants that are slated to go online in 2024.
They didn’t make cigarettes illegal, they just banned advertising, banned smoking in most places, and, above all, taxed tobacco to create a massive and artificial increase in prices.
Having one firm control the domestic ammunition market is the definition of a monopoly.
Vista is, today, rather friendly to civilian gun owners. A change in board leadership could end it over night.
We need new, independent, domestic end-to-end ammunition plants, and right away. It’s expensive to set one up, which is why there aren’t more in business.
Every action and rule enacted by the government involving firearms is solely intended to punish and harass lawful gun owners. They hate us more than they hate school shooters, for a very fundamental political reason: gun owners disagree. Vehemently. It’s what fascists absolutely cannot abide.
This shortage might have been caused by a lot of stoopid government activity and reactions to it, but the idea that “building more plants” is a solution is myopic at best.
The plants are built and run by private entities, and they are NOT going to overbuild capacity.
Even if it means that there is a long-term shortage, and the prices never come back down. That is gravy for them, and gravy for years to come. Constant demand, constant work, constant profits - stability for the long term.
Shooters have had some crazy salad years, and came to expect it would always be cheap and easy. It’s over, and will likely stay that way for the foreseeable future.
A Third Primer Manufacturer Now Tooling Up For Production in Texas in 2022
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/a-third-primer-manufacturer-now-tooling-up-for-production-in-texas-in-2022/
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FR Comments: https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4033702/posts
Ammunition plant coming to the Texarkana area
https://www.ktbs.com/news/texarkana/ammunition-plant-coming-to-the-texarkana-area/article_a00ac8b4-7a38-11ec-83e4-5754598b14c6.html?utm_campaign=blox&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social
Job fair today:
https://www.expansion-industries.com/
The missing critical components are primers and powder. Powder is hard to find, but not impossible. However primers are the real issue. No imported primers are allowed by the Fed Gov to be sold to consumer outlets. Only to ammo manufacturers.
What we are actually seeing is the beginning of Fascist industry in the USA. Bought and paid for politicians guarantee it so. Both Parties are bought.
It’s not unusual for tyrants to fear an armed citizenry!
What a shame... all of those Tulammo rounds I lost in that tragic boating accident would now be collector items...
Ping.
Also full-line ammunition plants, many of which have been moved from the gun-hostile northern states to gun-friendly southern states and expanded in capacity.
This article is out of date.....
About 3 years ago I got the wild notion that I wanted to get an AK, so I went ahead and bought the ammo 7.62x39, got it nice and cheap. Never bought the rifle though, other things always postponed the AK. Now I have several cases of Tula sitting in a humidity controlled safe and I’m smiling at “shortages”. Now if I can just convince the wife to let me finally get that AK....
The new primer manufacturer in Texas, Expansion Industries, will prove there is room for more competition in making primers.
The Leftists in charge have realized how difficult it is to stop gun buying so they have focused on ammunition and reloading.
People who used to shoot regularly have slowed or stopped wasting scarce and expensive ammunition.
The good news is ammunition supply at retail is rapidly increasing with accompanying RAPID reduction in prices.
Yes. Recently, I learned that the AK rifles PREFER the steel case ammo. The rifles cycle and eject steel case rounds better than they do brass rounds.
This Ping List is for all things pertaining to infringes upon or victories for the 2nd Amendment.
FReepmail me if you want to be added to or deleted from the list.
More 2nd Amendment related articles on FR's Bang List.
You will be pleasantly surprised at how reliable are the AK’s and how accurate they are at 100 yards. They were never designed as “sniper” rifles for long distance shooting but there are millions of them throughout the world because they work. Their bullet ballistics are similar to a .30-30 Winchester round. Those ballistics are superior to those of an AR-15 bullet.
I know there are two primer factories in Texas set to open shortly.
Obama also closed the last company in the USA that processed LEAD in Missouri.
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