Why Obama's Plan to Ban AR15 Ammo - Is a Bad Plan

It is my hope that someone in the Obama Admin., is sharp enough to pay close attention to what I am going to say here. 

If this executive action is made, there are several things (as follows) that will happen and that cannot be avoided:

1. There will be a run on ammo. (this is already happening)

2. The price of the ammo will rise (this too has already happened)

3. Once the ban is in effect, black-markets will be created for the ammo. (restrictions on goods and services always create black-markets for them - think "prohibition")

4. More people will die in the aftermath of the ensuing increase in criminal activity.

5. Consumers will change their behavior and commercial sales of AR15's will fall - (this is the objective of the executive order - it is a restriction on free-trade).

6. Consumers will look to purchase other newer weapons not affected by the ban on AR15 ammo - (which unfortunately is probably not the intent of the executive order).

7. Manufacturers will make weapons not constrained by the ban on AR15 ammo, and that are superior to the AR15.  They will simply move-on, nullifying effect of the ban.

8. More owners of AR15's will begin to sell them in the falling market, to recoup their investment. 

9. This change in behavior by current owners will further increasing the supply of the AR15s for sale.

10. The increase in the supply of AR15's will cause prices to fall making the firearm more accessible and more affordable to poorer criminals who currently opt to buy less expensive surplus weapons like the SKS and AK47. 

11. If the ban is not repealed by the next admin in 2-years, many who can reload the ammo may be compelled to enter the market of re-loading and selling the ammo privately. This invisible market will - at some point - be dominated by the most aggressive and more violent players. And more deaths will occur because of it. And the currently shunned-by-criminal AR15 will become the weapon-of-choice, for many. 

And no matter what happens legislatively (no matter if the ban is repealed or not); more low income criminals will have access to more lethal arms than they have today, because they will no longer be financially impractical for them to purchase or use.

The effect of this type of legislation (actually, it’s not legislation – it is executive fiat that bypasses the people’s right to representation), will put more lethal and (currently) far more expensive firearms within the economic grasp of economically disadvantaged criminals.

Currently, these weapons are not generally used by criminals (except in movies!), because they are too expensive, the ammo is more expensive, they are instantly more alarming looking and if one is lost or thrown away out necessity in a crime (which is often the case), the cost of the loss - in most cases - cannot be off-set by any gain realized in committing a crime.  Using a $1500 weapon to commit a $200-300 robbery where 1-in-5 times the weapon must be immediatly discarded, is a mistake an inexperienced criminal only makes once.

Sometimes you have to wonder if criminals don't understand more about economics, than academically elite politicians do. "Hats off!", to Steven Levitt & Stephan Dunbar, (Freakonomics, 2005, Wm Morrow)

Criminals are not deterred by laws. That's what makes them "criminals". If you want to protect the public from criminals, you need to make the cost of committing crime too high to make it a worthwhile endeavor. Limiting a criminals “means” does not change his "heart" - it merely makes other means more viable, until they get lucky enough for some ignorant bureaucrat to foolishly think a criminal’s evil can be eliminated by making his means so expensive in one context, that it becomes far more easily obtainable and far more affordable in another.

In this new context, modifying these currently expensive weapons to bump-fire (faux full-auto) and/or adding a suppressor will be not only affordable, but preferable.  Currently, law enforcement rarely (if ever) has to confront dangers like this.  But, if this executive action is taken, it will not be long before they will.  More people will be put in grave danger and more officers and innocent bystanders will likely die in firefights and that is clearly not the intent of the executive action.

This ban will increase crime and make more lethal firearms more affordable to criminals. It will create a black market in the ammo for these arms. It will therefore achieve the exact opposite of what is intended. Whether the intent is to reduce crime, or to make criminals less lethal, it will not only fail in both objectives; it will grossly enable both to occur.