Invest in Semi-Auto Weapons for Appreciation!

I clearly remember sitting on my lanai above Pearl Harbor reading a column in "Car & Driver". It must have been 1974. The advice in the column was to gather $10,000 and go out and buy a Jaguar XKE V-12. New emission standards forced Jaguar to discontinue the V-12 XKE and the author urged the readers to "make an investment" in a V-12 E-Type. The bureaucrats were forcing a great piece of engineering out of existence and the writer suggested that you should grab one before they were gone because it would pay you back in the long run. Well, it sounded like a great idea to me, but my monthly gross pay in that year was about $2000, so $10K was a pretty good chunk of change!

Looking at the XKE for sale ads today, I see that the columnist was right. You could have driven a V-12 E-Type for all of those years and it would have kept up with inflation. Gas and maintenance aside, that $10K could be $110K today.

So, here is my investment advice: Buy semi-automatic weapons. The entry price is do-able, probably less than $1000 "per share", and the price is practically guaranteed to go up. They are certainly more liquid than a Jaguar and have the added benefit of being potentially life-saving.

There is a segment in the US that hates guns. It is pretty easy to see that they are rising to power. Their attacks are clever. The most recent approach is "mental health." The fact that the Virginia Tech shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, was in a psychiatric center before he purchased his weapons has given the anti-gun lobby another rope to throw over those who wish to own guns.

I heard an NPR interview the other day where an eldercare professional said that those who care for the elderly classify any older patient who has a gun as "potentially dangerous".

My prediction is that the next shoe to drop will be child protection. In effect, "You can own a gun. You just can't have kids if you own a gun." I predict that the bureaucracy will play that hand in the form of ADC payments, enforcing child support orders, etc.

The guns they think they can get rid of first are semi-automatic "assault weapons." Personally, I don't see much use for an AR-15 or an AK-47 around the house myself, but there are a lot of peaceful folks in less peaceful places around the world who feel that an AK is as important as the walls of the house and probably more important than a toilet in daily life. A full auto AK is part of the "spray and pray" plan for taking care of their neighbors. We could get to that point pretty quickly in the US - as New Orleans demonstrated.

The attack on "assault weapons" is coming in many forms. Lawyers attack ammunition manufacturers (because they have money) and bureaucrats attack manufacturers of clips. The Mayor of New York, Nanny Bloomberg, and even Juliani continue to work anti-gun crowds despite evidence that the strong New York City gun laws only keep law-abiding folks from having guns.

I admit that if I am somehow appointed Emperor of the US, one of the first things I'll do is to crack down on weapons. Aftr all, I don't want an armed populace coming after me!

No matter who or what the attack or restrictions, supply will dry up and prices will skyrocket. Count on it.

WHAT TO BUY

The questions is "What to invest in now?" The two archetypes of modern semi-automatic assault weapons are the AR-15 and AK-47. This link takes you to a photo of an AR-15 with a very large...magazine. There are more of those photos here.

AR-15s are available new for prices ranging from $599 - $925. (More for the original Armalite) Practically every one who has had military training in the US in the last 25 years has fired one for familiarity, so they will keep their demand and have some liquidity. The .223 ammo might be hard to get in quantity. I think a good AR-15 in the $700 price range would be a good investment. This link takes you to more information from Atlantic Firearms (and no, I have no commercial ties to any of these companies.)





AK-47s are available new from manufacturers in Poland, Ukraine, China, and other places. There are restrictions on import and most of the weapons that you would want to invest in have a certain number of US parts. While people in the US think an AK is a piece of 3rd world junk, that's far from the truth. Prices for good AK-47s run around $500. The question of ammunition is important. While the .223 is at least used as a sporting round, 7.62 x 65 is less common in the US. As an investment piece in the US, I'd prefer an AR-15.

The discussion of ammunition brings up other alternatives. The Vulcan H/K SP89 Style is a semi-automatic copy of the MP5. It's a more expensive investment, running into as much as $1300 new. But, because it uses 9mm pistol ammunition, the rounds will probably be easier to get and cost a lot less. There are lots of folks, including the Germans and Israelis, who thought that 9mm is effective for automatic weapons --although there are different loadings.




The machine pistol is another weapon that is difficult to justify, so I predict it will receive the wrath of the bureaucrats. It has no stock and can be fired with one hand, so it is a "pistol." Even I find that a stretch, but there are "pistols" like this available in either .223 or 9mm for under $800, so it is an interesting investment.





My investment advice is to buy two identical weapons. Stay under $1000 for each in order to get the best percentage of appreciation and preserve liquidity. Fire one weapon and preserve the other one unfired. They both will appreciate. Buy ammunition in small lots and watch for legal limits on "hoarding". Don't play around with "pre restriction" weapons that came in before certain dates. The documentation can be bogus and get you into trouble both owning and selling. NEVER own or even investigate any parts needed to make semi-auto into auto. That's asking for big Federal trouble and really not necessary from any perspective.