If a little company like Stag Arms is shipping 6,000 AR-15 rifles a month, double the number from last year, and they have back orders for 70,000 more above their 6,000 unit a month manufacturing capability that will take two years to fill, and all of the thirty (30) or so AR-15 manufactures are back ordered at least 18-months, how many AR-15’s are going into circulation in the US each month? 75,000? 100,000? 125,000? And that’s just AR-15 rifles, how many AK’s, Springfield M1A1’s, SIG 551/556’s, and FN/FAL’s are going out the door each month? We need to agree on a conservative number. Let’s say: 100,000 brand new assault rifles (of all makes and models) are going into circulation in the United States each and every month.
On a side note. Go here, and then select the dots below the map, that’s a very informative 5-page graphic:
http://www.usatoday.com/...
Let’s get back to that 100,000 assault rifles a month number again. What does that mean? Well, in terms of the war in Afghanistan, the combined armed forces of the United States of America, and tens of thousands of private contract operators, have been in combat for over twelve (12) years, and our nation has spent, let’s use a conservative number, 1 trillion dollars, fighting a Taliban force that at any one time numbers no more than 10,000 fighters, of which only 2,000 to 3,000 are trained, skilled, motivated, full-time insurgents. Add in 5,000 more to cover foreign and Al Qaeda fighters of which 2,000 are full-time insurgents, and in all that time, for all that cost, we have been fighting at any one time about 5,000 trained, full-time insurgents.
Link for the cost: http://articles.washingtonpost.com/...
Link for the number of Taliban insurgents: http://www.nytimes.com/...
In just one (1) month of US assault rifle production we could arm every Afghan, foreign and Al Qaeda fighter with 6 or 7 world-class rifles. (This example is stupid, we would never do that.) Here’s a better example. An accurate count of the men who served in the Confederate Army is hard to come by, the best estimates of Confederate strength being somewhere between 750,000 and 1,000,000 men. So in just 8 to 10 months of US assault rifle production we could fully arm an army similar in size to Robert E. Lee’s.
Fortunately, the vast majority of the one million, two hundred thousand (1,200,000) new assault rifles that will be placed into circulation in the United States (in just this year) will find a safe, secure, and lawful home. Perhaps five hundred (500) of that 1.2 million number will ever be involved in a crime, not used in a violent crime, just seized in a crime, in a year.
Link for that: http://www.guncite.com/...
As much as the readership of the Daily Kos has a visceral disgust for what I’m about to say, the ultimate fate of the vast majority of American assault rifles is being passed from one generation to the next as cherished family heirlooms, from fathers to sons and daughters, and from grandfathers to grandchildren. Given the modern design and manufacturing materials that go into these rifles, and the lubricants that protect them, and the wide availability of spare barrels and parts to repair them, all of these assault rifles are going to have 500-year life spans. I own a 65-year old Garand rifle—a weapon that has killed more Japanese, German, Italian, North Korean and Chinese soldiers than any other, so much so that it was called, "the greatest battle implement ever devised" by General George Patton, that ironically enough was not even on the Senator Feinstein's AWB list--that looks and shoots and functions like new out of the box. If something were ever to break or wear out on it, it would take me less than 5-minutes to find and order a replacement.
When I was seven, my great grandfather, a full-blood Creek, sat me on his knee and presented me with a 1894 Winchester rifle in .32 Winchester caliber. “Always take care of this,” he said. “I’ve killed nine men with it, not counting a pile of Osage.” (He hated the Osage: with-a-passion. He never explained why.) I still have it of-course, it’s dead on at 200-yards, my uncle killed several big bucks with it, and it will pass to my girls, along with my Garand, and my DPMS LR-308 AP4 HFB, among others. The upshot to all of this: the vast majority of the 1.2 million assault rifles that will be shipped in 2013 will be around for centuries. Between 1950 and 2013, maybe 6-million assault rifles have been placed in circulation in the United States, and every year there might be a million more, and all of them will be fully functional and around for centuries.
Let’s talk high capacity magazines! Magpul, a company in Colorado, is shipping 200,000 AR-15 magazines a month, and has one (1) million on back order. The best guess is one (1) million high capacity magazines a month (of all types) are being shipped with five (5) million on back order. If you treat them right, magazines do not wear out, the untold millions upon millions of them will be around and fully functional for centuries.
When you think about the ammunition in this country, you have to think in terms of billions of rounds in private hands. There is so much ammunition being stockpiled now it’s hard to come by. I know people who have 500,000 rounds of 5.56 (M16/AR15) ammunition stored in their basement. That’s considered a little unusual, but 20,000 to 50,000 is pretty common. If you store it properly, the smokeless powder in ammunition will not degrade, it will go off just fine in three-hundred years. I make my own ammunition from components. I buy bullets, powder, brass and primers and make it myself. All the components are back ordered months and prices have gone crazy.
To many Americans, the tight supply and sharply higher prices of firearms (of all types,) magazines, ammunition, and components is infuriating because it’s costing them money. But American and international assault rifle factories (firearms and ammunition factories in general) are working double shifts, seven days a week, and it looks like it’s going to stay that way.
Unintended Consequences: a hundred thousand new assault rifles placed into circulation in this country every month--and I haven’t even gotten to semi-automatic pistols yet--millions of high capacity magazines, billions of rounds of ammunition, and all of it will be around and fully functional for centuries.
And I haven’t gotten to the worst part yet.