Ethics of pricing firearms during 'panics'

[6pt-sika]

I put them on Gunbroker started at the price I need to get and any extra is gravey !

IF a couple fellows get in a bidding war thats on them I didn't hold a gun to their heads .

To be honest if I had one or twenty AR's I'd list them now and sell every GD one of them . And like anything else I'd price them at what I needed to get to make my normal profit and if they got bid up in the craze so be it .

I mean why would I sell it to Joe Blow that I don't know for $500 and he walks down the street and 15 minutes later sells it to someone for $1000 and so on and so on .

[Old Savage]

Charles - not me OS asking you to define but OI (Old Ironsights).

But as I tried to say before, to me gouging has to do with necessities not desires. I do not view the black guns as necessity.

[jdad]

I'm going to let the market decide my rifle's value. Its started at .01 .

It's Christmas, so Mark will probably not get the rest (20 or so) of the photos and description up, for a day or so.

http://www.gunauction.com/buy/11643553/ ... squad-auto

[92&94]

Gouging is a tricky subject because it is defined more by government regulation than by market forces - to a free market capitalist there is simply no such thing. When the question concerns food and water during a storm shortage, then government imposed ethics is justifiable in my view. When it's simply a feeding frenzy of people hoping to flip AR's in a few months, I don't really have any problem with vendors charging as much as they possibly can get. PT Barnum would love watching the current buying frenzy

From a free market point of view, one also has to realize that there is a very good reason that prices came back down after the 2008 panic - because the demand was no longer there by say 2010. Ammo stayed fairly high, because replacement costs went up due to metals prices, but the guys getting $1/round for surplus 7.62 NATO had come back down to $0.50 or so by 2010 or so, because they found themselves sitting on ammo that no one would buy once it was clear that Obama was not moving to ban stuff. As much as we may gripe about profiteering, some of the time the profiteer loses his investment due to market forces - and we tell him TS.

I'll save my energy for griping about the government banning stuff, not the guys who make a buck on stuff that is still available over the long term.

[Idahoser]

is it "gouging",

if you were the government and had the power to force me to pay your price, you could call it gouging. If you find buyers at that price, then you both come out with what you want, then it can't be called gouging, that's the free market doing what it's supposed to do.
If I don't like your price, I don't have to pay it.

[Idahoser]

I am not suprised most of you don't see a connection between morality and capitalism. If more folks did see a connection, they goverment would not see fit to muck around in the free enterprise system. If folks don't self regulate, the goverment most surely will do it for you.

I just wonder if any of you see any connection between morality and life in general? Do you hold the position that if it is legal then just do it?

the morality is built in UNTIL the government gets involved.

[Sixgun]

Doc,
This is America where capitalism rules. If YOU don't make the extra bucks on it, the next guy WILL.

I have talked personally to ATF agents who have told me they could care less about the average guy who buys and sells a half dozen/dozen guns a year. Its the AH who buys multiple guns (usually the same make/model/caliber) and resells them on the street.

Hey, your not making a business out of it.

Here in the East, if you snooze--you lose. Nice guys finish last.....I'm sure there are more "sayings" but when it comes to putting bucks in MY pocket, I open up the "smart department".

After all, you think the gas/utility/gasoline/insurance/medical companies care about raising prices on the little guy...............and those are necessities. Get what you can and sleep well.------------------Me

[Old Savage]

Guns are a commodity like any other with a value at the moment. I might not want to sell at $500 but at $2000 - now the whole picture changes. Don't know if anyone is trading in AR futures but I have had no need, no want, no use for one since Dec of 76 when I left the service. Come to think of it, I had no need or want for one then.