Wednesday, July 16, 2014

BREAKING NEWS! Sanctions or back door gun control? Obama bans Russian rifle imports. Treasury.gov

The Saiga-12 is one of the firearms banned from import. Wikipedia

Obama's executive order #13662 bans any trade with Kalashnikov Concern (formally Izhmash). According to the FAQ this bans all new sales for any product made by the company. Secondary market sales are still allowed. Firearms effected by this ban include the popular Saiga-12 shotgun and AK-47 variants.

My Comment:
Not happy right now. As far as I am concerned this has nothing to do with Ukraine and everything to do with banning firearms. AK's and Saiga's are both scary black rifles that the government has been trying and failing miserably to ban for the past few years. Any attempt at banning these firearms nationally met with fierce resistance and ultimately failed miserably. This is an end run around the american people. It's going to cause a panic buy causing these rifles to disappear from the secondary market, as well as increasing the costs of ammunition for any of these firearms. Kalashnikov isn't the only company that makes AK's but banning new sales from them is going to constrict the market considerably. 

As for the sanctions themselves, even though this is a large company for Russia it shouldn't effect them. They are playing the long game here and losing some sales for a few companies isn't going to hurt as much as a Ukraine that's a member of NATO. Plus it helps Putin because he can now blame sanctions for any economic problems.

 As for the American firearms market this may finally settle the debate between the AR-15 and AK-47 platforms. AR-15's are produced locally so unless they get banned by some new gun control law the supply is going to be a lot more stable. 

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