Me and my buddy.

Several months ago I had tossed around the idea of purchasing a Saiga 12.  What a cool gun right?  Basically an AK chambered in 12 gauge, built on the Kalashnikov receiver which I have come to truly admire and appreciate.  Load it up with 00 buck and have at it.

I don’t know if any of you recall the street sweeper.  To the best of my memory it was essentially a 12 gauge shot gun built with a revolving cylinder like a giant revolver handgun.  In my youth I had my eyes on one.  I even put an order in for one, they were on back order at the time, but of course Clinton’s assault weapon ban came into effect.  The company wasn’t able to fill all the back orders so I never did get one.  At that time I believe you could have bought one for around $300, I have seen some sold recently for over $1200.  So here is comes along something even cooler, the Saiga.  A semi auto magazine fed 12 gauge.  Who doesn’t want one for their collection?

Street sweeper.  Click here to watch the video, it demos the gun nicely.  Maybe not the best engineered firearm of all time, but definitely collectible.

Prices were totally reasonable at the beginning of the summer.  Of course like many other times in my life I allowed myself to become distracted by other things and never got around to buying one.  Needless to say when I jumped on gunbroker the other night I was surprised.  What happened?  Overnight the prices jumped considerably!   What, you ask, could have caused a spike in prices?  Politics of course.

Do you care to know when the prices jumped? July 16th to be exact.  You may or may not be aware of president Obama’s executive order number 13662, banning the import of Kalashnikov firearms from mother Russia.  This includes weapons produced by Izhmash and of course Saiga.  Basically anything based on the Kalashnikov action.   They like to promote this as sanctions against Russia for their involvement in the Ukraine.  But honestly you have to be blind or just choose not to see a trend here.  I mean we are still importing lots of stuff from Russia like their vodka for example.  Why does this executive order specifically target assault rifles from all the other Russian imports?  You already know why.  You don’t need me to tell you.

Saiga 12. Click on the pic to see it in action.

I think what I find most interesting and possibly humorous is the unintended consequences that always seem to arise as a result of these political events.  For example earlier last year when Ms. Feinstein was leading the charge to pass legislation banning assault rifles.  Everybody was buying everything they could.  Prices skyrocketed while inventory plummeted.  Basic supply and demand.  And if you were involved in selling firearms or ammunition you probably had a stellar sales year. If you owned stock in Glock or Smith and Wesson you probably made some bank.

I really worry about our leaders, I really sincerely do.  Well not so much about them, they are very good at taking care of themselves, they don’t need me to worry about them.  I worry about what they are doing to us as a nation.  The value of the dollar continues to plummet, and our national debt has reach unfathomable numbers.  We talk about raising the minimum wage, what would that solve when the value of the dollar continues to plummet?  Maybe we begin by boosting the value of the dollar, maybe paying down the national debt would help?  I really don’t know.  It’s not just the Democrats and not just the Republicans, they all scare me.  Sometimes they make me want to cry, sometimes they make me angry, and of course some times they make me laugh.  For a good laugh click here.  If you just watched the preceding link I’m sure you understand now why we have such strange and ludicrous gun laws in this country. But, I digress.  One thing about the left is that they are very persistent.  If at first they don’t succeed they will try and try and try again.

——-Corey