Feinstein's Gun Ban Threat to Private Sellers, Investments

Amid all the constitutional concerns surrounding Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) “Assault Weapons Ban of 2013,” one issue that no one is talking about is how a her proposed gun ban could depress and eventually crush the prices of guns that people have bought as investments. 

After all, under Obama, as under Clinton in the 1990s, gun sales and their value have skyrocketed. 

But if Feinstein’s bill is adopted into law, people who own the most valuable of guns will be legally constrained to register them, and they will be barred from selling them or even transferring them. Her bill specifically states “it shall be unlawful to transfer a semiautomatic assault weapon to anyone who is not licensed under this [law].” This would necessitate the end of private sales as well.

So how much will a gun that brought $3,000 on the open market a year ago be worth if it’s no longer allowed to be privately sold? Not much, especially if the gun has a paper trail on it and the gun owner is registered too, via Feinstein’s gun grabbing scheme.  

It’s important to note that this registration scheme will prevent the gun from being sold on the “black market” as well. This will cause the value of the gun to plummet, because it will mean the registered owner will own the gun until he or she is deceased and then the government, or an officially licensed government agent, will take possession of the weapon.

This type of situation will eventually open the door for the kind of forced buyback we saw in Australia in 1997. And it will happen after prices have been depressed to a point where the government can justify paying a “fair market value” at far below what these guns are currently worth.