Yes. People are paying. As someone who is charging a "premium price" (high as a cat's back) for SKS Tapco magazines right now (and ammunition if I can sell my SKS--again at a high price) I think it comes down to questions of what is going to be available, when it will be available, and if Congress is going to move quickly to make it unavailable sometime soon. If they do, the prices I--and everyone else--am charging right now is going to seem like a fond memory.
I was looking on another board at some discussion about the make up of Congress. Only 233 Republicans to 200 Democrats, and a lot of those Republicans are the Northeastern Republicans who weren't terribly happy just a day or so ago. They only need 17 Republicans to jump ship to pass a ban in the House. Peter King of New York already says he'll vote yes on a ban. The rest of us in the US might be mad about it, but if local voters in the Northeast are more concerned about other issues like lower taxes but not so much about guns, then it might not hurt those Republicans terribly in their home states before their next election--in two years, which is a long time in politics.
Another reason to charge premium prices. Hi cap magazines are gone. Nowhere is offering them for sale, or if they do it lasts about 10 minutes then they are bought out. Or "backordered". Which means you may never see it. When *I* sell something, you see it before you buy it, you know WHAT it is you are buying (check out some of the "Tapco" magazines for sale on Gunbroker right now...a 40rd Tapco? Riiight), and you get to drive home with it the same day. That ought to be worth a premium right now. Cause who knows when, or if, you'll receive what you want if you order it. In fact I'd strongly advise anyone against ordering anything right now unless it is with a reputable company of long standing. Face to face sales where you can handle the product, buy it, and walk away is the way to go right now.
With most companies doing "just in time" shipping nowadays, it means NOBODY carries surplus. You don't "stock up for a rainy day" if you are a manufacturer. Tapco I'm sure is cranking them out as fast as they can. But how much can they crank out? In my case I have SKS mags for sale. How many will Tapco create per month? 10,000? 20,000? 100,000? I looked up their business location and looked at them on google maps street view. It's a small building. Divide those 100,000 mags per month (which seems WAY high to me as a production estimate) into the states that allow high cap mags. 46 or 45 states. Works out to around 2200 magazines per state. With 7 million estimated SKS's here in the US that works out to 152,000 SKS's per state. So 2200 mags are available for the 152,000 SKS's. Each guy who buys magazines isn't going to just buy 1. They'll order 4 or 5. So you are talking about 400 guys getting mags on a month's production. That leaves 151,600 other guys who didn't get squat. Some don't need it. They've already got mags. Some won't care. But there will still be a ton of guys who go out and buy an SKS right now, then decide they need mags. Or other guys who buy mags as an investment. If Midway, Natchez Shooter Supply, JG Sales, Cabelas etc get any orders filled from Tapco, then there will be millions of guys waiting there to order all of it in 5 minutes. The quick ones will get some. The rest won't. It's that simple.
Another reason for high prices is as an inducement for me to sell. I'm extremely reluctant to sell for 2 reasons. 1) I may want these mags in the future for my own use, and 2) these mags may be worth 3 or 4 or 5 times what I'm trying to sell them for now if a ban goes thru. The only way I can overcome this reluctance is if I charge a high price compared to what they were 2 weeks ago. If you don't want to pay the price, then don't buy from me.
But also don't come crying in a month saying "I wish I had bought them then when they were your price...now that they're banned they're 10 times what I could have bought them for from Midway". If you don't already have mags for the rifles then this IS the time to panic, because the wolf IS at the door. If you are forward thinking enough to look at how much industry can produce, how many guys are demanding mags and rifles, and the make up of Congress and how close things are, then you'll see why prices are rising now and will continue to rise for the foreseeable future...IMO.
Guys who are selling their stuff for the same price they got it for are probably going to be kicking themselves in a couple of months--or weeks. But it is theirs to do with what they want. Capitalism and Democracy. For those guys that are buying, they aren't just purchasing a product. They are also purchasing peace of mind to know that they'll have the tools they need--if they should ever need them. That's worth a premium also.
