Buzzbomb Posted January 2 Report Share Posted January 2 Really interesting to see how much Americans pay for such items as covered by this forum. $1000s and $1000s sometimes into the hundred thousand territory. why? It’s America where guns and hardware are everywhere? For example here in NZ where you have to be a very special person in a very small special market you can buy an awesome Thomson SMG for $5000 nzd. ($3000 usd), or an MP/Stg44 for $8000nzd (5000usd). have a look here https://gunsnz.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=132 These guns/types of guns are rare to find here in NZ and they generally do not get imported into NZ anymore unless an individual has a lot of time and a lot of drive to do so (hurdle jumping). These guns are very controlled/followed by the govt, so paperwork cannot be the issue, Is it just supply and demand? Why do Americans need to pay so much? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrangeRanger Posted January 2 Report Share Posted January 2 It's supply and demand. The pool of people who buy or would like to buy MGs has always been larger than the supply. Inflation of the US dollar has played a significant part as well. The demand was augmented by an article published a few years ago by Midwest Tactical about what an investment opportunity machine guns presented. Since then a lot of guns have disappeared from the market place into the safes of investors who will never shoot them and have no genuine interest in them other than their cash value. That in turn has driven up the price of the remaining guns which makes them investment targets and the vicious circle spirals out of control Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
damifino Posted January 3 Report Share Posted January 3 Restrictions on our rights to own firearms were enacted for our protection. Thats the polite way to say it. https://www.congress.gov/bill/99th-congress/house-bill/4332/amendment 1. H.Amdt.777 — 99th Congress (1985-1986) Description: An amendment to make it unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machinegun except in the case of a machinegun that was lawfully possessed before the date of enactment. ( 1986 ) Sponsor: Hughes, William J. [Rep.-D-NJ-2] (Offered 04/10/1986) Latest Action: 04/10/86 Amendment Passed in Committee of the Whole by Voice Vote. (All Actions) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_Owners_Protection_Act The Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 (FOPA) The Act also contained a provision that banned the sale to civilians of machine guns manufactured after the date of enactment, restricting sales of these weapons to the military and law enforcement. Thus, in the ensuing years, the limited supply of these arms available to civilians has caused an enormous increase in their price, with most costing in excess of $10,000. Regarding these fully-automatic firearmsowned by private citizens in the U.S., political scientist Earl Kruschke said "approximately 175,000 automatic firearms have been licensed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (the federal agency responsible for administration of the law) and evidence suggests that none of these weapons has ever been used to commit a violent crime."[3]: 85 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inertord Posted January 3 Report Share Posted January 3 On a side note I noted that magazines and accessories on that site seem to bring a 200 - 300% Premium over US Prices https://gunsnz.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=4692&search=Mag&description=true&category_id=279 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzzbomb Posted January 3 Author Report Share Posted January 3 4 hours ago, inertord said: On a side note I noted that magazines and accessories on that site seem to bring a 200 - 300% Premium over US Prices https://gunsnz.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=4692&search=Mag&description=true&category_id=279 Yes this is typical shafting that we get on almost every product sold by our local vendors. That’s why we import our bits and bobs a lot of the time, to avoid being shafted by the ridiculous retail mark ups. if a scope cost 1000usd in USA it will cost 2500nzd in NZ. Everyone started importing every day things about 15 years ago, and to try and force us to buy locally, now our govt stops the pacels at the boarder and collects GST (VAT) on items over a certain value. (If it is declared accurately haha) it’s about $300 usd and above. it’s mostly still cheaper to import stuff from you guys in the mighty USA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzzbomb Posted January 3 Author Report Share Posted January 3 5 hours ago, damifino said: Restrictions on our rights to own firearms were enacted for our protection. Thats the polite way to say it. https://www.congress.gov/bill/99th-congress/house-bill/4332/amendment 1. H.Amdt.777 — 99th Congress (1985-1986) Description: An amendment to make it unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machinegun except in the case of a machinegun that was lawfully possessed before the date of enactment. ( 1986 ) Sponsor: Hughes, William J. [Rep.-D-NJ-2] (Offered 04/10/1986) Latest Action: 04/10/86 Amendment Passed in Committee of the Whole by Voice Vote. (All Actions) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearm_Owners_Protection_Act The Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 (FOPA) The Act also contained a provision that banned the sale to civilians of machine guns manufactured after the date of enactment, restricting sales of these weapons to the military and law enforcement. Thus, in the ensuing years, the limited supply of these arms available to civilians has caused an enormous increase in their price, with most costing in excess of $10,000. Regarding these fully-automatic firearmsowned by private citizens in the U.S., political scientist Earl Kruschke said "approximately 175,000 automatic firearms have been licensed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (the federal agency responsible for administration of the law) and evidence suggests that none of these weapons has ever been used to commit a violent crime."[3]: 85 So you can’t import these guns from us here over in NZ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnsonlmg41 Posted January 4 Report Share Posted January 4 17 hours ago, Buzzbomb said: So you can’t import these guns from us here over in NZ? No, we have not been able to import for civilian sales since 1968. People/ domestic companies were able to manufacture new machine guns up until 1986, then that stopped as noted above by damifino. The number of machine guns available to most of the 330 mil. people that live here is less than 185,000 guns. Late 90's is when people started becoming educated that you could own them mostly via the internet and sales continued to climb and the number of guns decreases slightly every year as the population increases and firearms ownership seems to be increasing, thus the supply and demand curve. Sales were poor and prices low until 1987/1988 when people started to realize there were not going to be any more. Prices began to climb then, but not at an accelerated rate. MWT article is laughable and had zero to do with prices climbing. If anyone can lay claims like that it would be Curtis Earl. Relatively speaking in gun world, machine guns are still a reasonable buy relative to scarcity in the US vs. other firearms categories. I really can't imagine I'd be involved if all we could have were dummy guns? It's definitely a market, even here, but a lot of us would be out of the hobby. It is indeed sad what was done to NZ, and around the world. We still have brain damaged oxygen starved folks still wearing masks to this day and no one's been held accountable for the fraud.....but that's another topic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoscoeTurner Posted January 4 Report Share Posted January 4 On 1/2/2025 at 2:45 PM, Buzzbomb said: Really interesting to see how much Americans pay for such items as covered by this forum. $1000s and $1000s sometimes into the hundred thousand territory. why? It’s America where guns and hardware are everywhere? For example here in NZ where you have to be a very special person in a very small special market you can buy an awesome Thomson SMG for $5000 nzd. ($3000 usd), or an MP/Stg44 for $8000nzd (5000usd). have a look here https://gunsnz.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=132 These guns/types of guns are rare to find here in NZ and they generally do not get imported into NZ anymore unless an individual has a lot of time and a lot of drive to do so (hurdle jumping). These guns are very controlled/followed by the govt, so paperwork cannot be the issue, Is it just supply and demand? Why do Americans need to pay so much? Why? Simply because there is no other legal alternative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzzbomb Posted January 4 Author Report Share Posted January 4 Wow! I’m saddened to hear of this demise for you guys. If only your media would make note of this crippling fact. I guess it’s all down to… How long can you sustain the ownership of semi auto centre fires for. Never give up that battle! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TSMGguy Posted January 4 Report Share Posted January 4 On 1/2/2025 at 1:45 PM, Buzzbomb said: ...why? It’s America where guns and hardware are everywhere? ...Why do Americans need to pay so much? Right, demand has far outstripped supply. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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