Is this for real!?

[Evil Monkey]

These are some of the cheapest prices I've ever seen!

Full auto Valmets!!! $1,695

This is a 1974 ad. Rifles as low as $289!

1984? Beretta AR70 $520! Valmet RPK $550 and Valmet Bullpup $400!

1985 or 1965? Can't tell but WOW! Dirt cheap HK's!!!

I got these pictures from http://www.valmetweapons.com/Valmet_Advertising.php

It's too bad I was born in 1987. Bet you old timers had it real good back then. Damn gun laws!

 

[AJ Dual]

I like the HK94 A3 in the last ad.

I sold mine for $3000 in 1996…

I don't miss it that much though. Very heavy for what a $350 Kel-Tec Sub2000 will do, launch 9mm's from the shoulder...

 

[ID_shooting]

EM, you have too remember, people didn't get paid as much back then.

In the 70's $8.00/hour was darn good pay. If you compared current costs (excluding full-auto and non-importable guns) vs. income, you will find that dollar for dollar, guns are cheaper now than they once were.

 

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

This is a 1974 ad. Rifles as low as $289!

If you convert that to current dollars ($1187.07), it doesn't seem to be quite such a deal.

 

[pharmer]

Before the sainted Ronald Reagan pulled his gun control scheme in '86, full autos were reasonable. New MP5's for $1500 and such. Joe

 

[El Tejon]

Ummm, except full auto imports were not available to average Joes because of the 1968 Safe Streets Act.

 

[JesseL]

Ummm, except full auto imports were not available to average Joes because of the 1968 Safe Streets Act.

Wasn't there a not-insignifcant cottage industry built around legal full-auto conversions of imported semis, prior to '86?

 

[Evil Monkey]

Assuming the full auto valmet ad was published in 1968, by using that conversion tool Jorg posted, $1,695 in 1968 would be $9863.15 in 2006! Quite expensive.

So I've learned that these weapons weren't really cheaper, rather people earned less money back then. But still, alot of weapons were never seen again because of import bans and sporting clause crap.

 

[iamkris]

If you convert that to current dollars ($1187.07), it doesn't seem to be quite such a deal.

Yup...I've never understood why people can't seem to get their head around the time value of money. Isn't economics / finance taught in school anymore?

Bet you old timers had it real good back then

Since when is being around in the 80's considered being an "old timer"?

 

[bigun15]

Since when is being around in the 80's considered being an "old timer"?

Now. I was born in 1990.

 

[Headless]

I'd say that makes you a young'un more than us old timers

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Before the sainted Ronald Reagan pulled his gun control scheme in '86, full autos were reasonable.

You are a little off on your history. The 1986 Firearms Owner Protection Act had been proposed seven times by Volkmer and died in House committee every time because the Dems had a solid lock on the House.

In 1986, Volkmer did some behind the scenes campaigning and caught the Dems napping. He started a discharge petition to force the bill out of committee and managed to get all the signatures in four days IIRC. Because the Dem leadership had killed this bill so often and so successfully, they had just assumed this one would go the same way and had no alternative marked-up bill to report out of committee. So as a last minute effort, they added the MG ban as a "poison pill" hoping it would kill the whole bill. They did this on a voice vote that many gun owners consider controversial in itself.

The bill passed the House even with the poison pill and went to the Senate. In the Senate, they were faced with the choice of introducing their own bill without the poison pill or voting on the House bill as it was written. Because a new Senate pill would have meant a House-Senate conference where we would have likely lost most of the negotiations, the Senate swallowed the bill poison pill and all.

The bill was presented to Reagan to sign and he did sign it (supported by the NRA). Overall, the bill has done a lot more good for gunowners than bad. Do you like mail order ammo? Thank FOPA. Like being able to drive through anti-gun states without being harassed about your legally owned guns? FOPA. Resumption of milsurp imports? FOPA. Stopping the ATF from "inspecting" FFLs out of business? FOPA. Overall, I think FOPA was a pretty smart trade - unless you believe that the same administration that banned ugly guns in 1994 would have continued to allow new machine guns to be built, it is hard to argue that Reagan didn't do the right thing.

You can certainly blame Reagan for supporting some gun control; but the 1986 MG ban is really not one of those issues.

 

[wdlsguy]

I can buy an M4 kit for $485 and a stripped lower for $100. If I could still make a machinegun on a Form 1 for $200, I'd have something worth about $10,000 today (because of the 1986 ban) for about $800.

 

[History Prof]

Since when is being around in the 80's considered being an "old timer"?

Now. I was born in 1990.

[WC Fields Voice]Go away kid, ya bother me![/voice]

Do you kids even know who WC Fields is?

When ever I teach the Reagan era, I have to remember that my students were born in 1988. I remember it like it was yesterday. I guess that is how my professors felt when they described the JFK assassination and we all just stared blankly at them....

 

[ID_shooting]

I settled for being old when 90% of my CD collection shows up VH1 flashbacks

I can't belive becuase I graduated high school when Regan was President I am considered an "Old Timer."

How bout this, we had steel pots and A1's when I was in basic. I didn't see a Kevlar till I was an E4.

 

[wdlsguy]

So as a last minute effort, they added the MG ban as a "poison pill" hoping it would kill the whole bill.

Which laid the foundation for the 1994 AWB.

The bill was presented to Reagan to sign and he did sign it (supported by the NRA).

Which explains why I refuse to join the NRA. If they succeed in getting the machinegun ban repealed someday I will reconsider.

unless you believe that the same administration that banned ugly guns in 1994 would have continued to allow new machine guns to be built

Why not? They allowed AOWs, DDs, SBRs, SBSs and silencers to be built.

it is hard to argue that Reagan didn't do the right thing.

Unless machineguns are your "thing".

You can certainly blame Reagan for supporting some gun control; but the 1986 MG ban is really not one of those issues.

I guess Reagan's evil twin signed the legislation, then?

 

[spooney]

I read somewhere that the NRA supported the MG ban because they thought it would be overturned as unconstitutional.

 

[Gord]

And that's where the old saw about assuming comes in...

 

[Rabbi]

Oops, I was born less than two years after WWII ended, that means I'm leaning on 60 years, breathing children's oxygen and being selfish.

Something tells me I ain't sorry ................ what have y'all contributed to Western Civilization?

I'll try and get off "your" planet as quickly as I can, OK?

I was in the boy's room, a sophomore in high school, burning a secret Winston when JFK got hit.

I'll see you in heaven when you know more.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Which laid the foundation for the 1994 AWB.

Really? Got any evidence to support that claim?

Which explains why I refuse to join the NRA. If they succeed in getting the machinegun ban repealed someday I will reconsider.

Always a nice response - I'll join the NRA the day it has succeeded so wildly than my membership won't really be needed.

Why not? They allowed AOWs, DDs, SBRs, SBSs and silencers to be built.

Well, I don't have my alternative dimensions crystal ball with me. All I can say is I find it difficult to believe that the same administration that banned semi-automatic rifles that just looked like machineguns would have been OK with leaving machinegun production open.

Unless machineguns are your "thing".

Even if machineguns are your thing... we would have gone through eight years of the Clinton Administration with ATF having even broader power than it did then. To use just one example - gun shows. FOPA said that you selling your rifle to your brother was not "engaged in the business of selling firearms." Before that, the statute was open to interpretation by the ATF. How do you think they would have interpreted that under Clinton?

Here is a nice list of what FOPA did. Give it a read and decide if you would trade all that away for the chance that Clinton might have ignored full-auto weapons during his eight year term.

I guess Reagan's evil twin signed the legislation, then?

Reagan's choice was to take the good with the bad or lose everything. Even if you don't think that was the right choice to take, it certainly doesn't make it "his gun control scheme." Read the link I provided. Surely you can imagine why some might consider that a trade worth making even with the poison pill?

I know some THR members might not be aware of it; but there used to be a time when handgun ammo was registered on a 4473 just like pistols were. Centralized registration of gun owners by the federal government wasn't prohibited by law at one time. Personally, I think FOPA was worth it even with the poison pill.

I read somewhere that the NRA supported the MG ban because they thought it would be overturned as unconstitutional.

Yes, I believe that some within the NRA thought it would make a good 2A test case since it covered weapons that were obviously more related to Miller's "militia" test. The NRA realized pretty quickly that they weren't going to get a good decision from SCOTUS though. It is ironic that many of the people who are mad at the NRA for supporting the 1986 FOPA and counting on the courts to overturn the ban are also mad at the NRA for not trying to push a Second Amendment case to the Supreme Court level.

 

[wdlsguy]

Look at the timeline, Bartholomew:

1934 - a $200 tax for manufacture or transfer of machineguns is imposed
1968 - importation of machineguns is banned
1986 - domestic manufacturing of machineguns is banned
1992 - importation of "assault weapons" is banned
1994 - domestic manufacturing of "assault weapons" is banned

Foreign machineguns -> domestic machineguns -> foreign "assault weapons" -> domestic "assault weapons".

 

[SomeKid]

That is a very nice timeline wdl. Maybe that is how the anti's are planning it. Now, since you have uncovered it, why not join us in our fight and put your money in there and be involved*?

* - Ranting on internet message boards does not count as involved.

 

[Wes Janson]

Now if we can just keep that sequence moving backwards (one down, three to go).

By the way, consider http://www.gunsamerica.com/guns/976614235.htm

That's $12k for one nowadays, and according to Evil Monkey, that would have been $10k for the same rifle back then. A slight difference, but it's not that much.

On the other hand, of all the things I wish I could go back in time (well before I was ever alive) and purchase a few hundred of, I'd have to say the Solothurn would be at the top of my list:
http://www.amsd.ch/s18/s18-50s-sales.html

At an original price of $199 in 1957 (if I read the fuzzy print correctly), that would give it a current cost of $1,434.07 per rifle. For a semi-automatic 20mm rifle with optics, 10 mags, spare parts, storage chest, tools, muzzle break, cleaning kit, and a dummy cartridge. Plus an additional $5.33 per round, in modern prices. If only...

 

[wdlsguy]

Who is "us", SomeKid? I haven't seen any evidence the NRA is interested in repealing the 1986 machinegun ban.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Look at the timeline, Bartholomew

And how does that timeline support your assertion? Were they going to skip over machineguns and ignore that step when they already had the political capital to ban things that merely looked like machineguns?