Confessions of an Unapologetic Price Gouging Thief:
First: For all the people that say people paying $4k for a gun is stupid, calling those people morons, or calling other people thiefs. If something went down tomorrow and the AWB was in place, these people would look like damn geniuses.
The other thing a lot of broke dick smucks out there don't understand is that $4k for some people is just like $4 for others. It's all a matter of perspective, if I make $4k a week what do I care if I blow a weeks pay on a toy. I don't care, so get over it.
I have a buddy that works at a gun shop in CO. One of the richest counties in America. It is nothing for a guy to come in and pay premium for an AR-15 and then add $1500 in accessories and optics like he is adding blue cheese crumbles to his steak, and upgrading his potato to loaded. Are they stupid? Hell NO! They saw something they wanted and they got it. The value for them was higher to have it right then, the way they wanted it.
I always find it funny that when they take surveys about "how much money is enough to make in a year" Every income bracket names the bracket right above theirs. It is a matter of perspective, if you can't fathom paying $4k for something you want, guess what, you are in the lower income group.
There are guys here who regularly pay $4k plus for a bolt action rifle that, some might argue, is not that much better than a remmington 5r off the shelf. It's their business, I am happy for them, they got what they wanted. No one put a gun to their head and made them buy it. They placed a value on it, and the psychological benefit of owning it was greater than the psychological benefit the cash in their bank account.
I have moved a lot of guns since Sandy Hook. Excess or duplicates in my collection. I put them up on Gun Broker and set the opening bid at the OLD market price. Am I Gouger? HELL NO. Where the listing ended is what the market would bear.
Guess what, back when .22 was cheap I purchased 10s of thousands of rounds of it. At $60 a brick for 500 rounds currently I probably am going to throw those bricks on Gun Broker with a starting bid of $22. Where it ends only the market will know.
So what am I "supposed to do". Offer to sell my ammo at what I paid for it? I could do that, but if I wanted to give to charity I could just drop a dollar the offering plate. For those of you bitching about gouging, All I hear is jealousy, envy, and wishing you had the goods you put off buying.
You want to own a Tavor right now, pony up, if not sit back and see where the price shakes out after the new has worn off. I want a SIG 556 to round out my collection. A month or more ago they were selling for $2800-$3000. I am the kind of guy that could just buy one at that price, but I took a gamble and decided to see where the price shook out. Now you can go on and buy one for $1300 any day of the week. I gambled right, but there also could have been an AWB and $3000 might have looked like a steal.
I will never forget my father turning his nose up at a First Generation Sig 550 for $1600 in the late 80s. That gun was at $10k+ in the early 2000s. He bet wrong. Again my friends, value is a matter of perspective.
Don't meant to offend anyone, but the Gouger talk reminds me of little jealous children who are angry some other kid has more candy than they do.