WHYYYYY are you giving in to these .22lr gougers!?

[hornadylnl]

Yeah, but I'm sure everyone here has lost money at some point in some market, without starting a thread on INGO about it displaying this kind of righteous indignation.

The entire industry is like this. People simply will not accept price hikes based on supply and demand. How many people on here now refuse to shop anywhere that was participating in "price gouging" during the panic? Because I know it's a substantial portion of gun enthusiasts.

When it comes to guns, with a large portion of us, all rules of economics go out the window and are replaced with irrational childish nonsense.

Not to mention that it's self centered as all hell. Just as much if not more greedy than the price gougers themselves. To try to take the moral high ground, because you want something that someone else is willing to pay more for, and you think you're entitled to it.

Anyone who argues against this type of price gouging is arguing that anyone like me who is too busy to hunt down a scarce product should pretty much be excluded from the market so they can get a cheaper price.

This ins't limited to just guns and ammo though. Take any particular commodity that's near and dear to the hearts of that group and they'll feel the same way. Look at building materials and generators during natural disasters.

I remembered this video from an earlier gouging thread and just found it. I don't see how anyone can argue the logic presented but they will.
Is Price Gouging Immoral? Should It Be Illegal? - YouTube

If Walmart's price on a bulk pack was $40 or more, I doubt the mall ninjas would be out shooting the rifling out of their tacticool 22's every weekend. But then Walmart would be the evil greedy gougers. I don't understand why so many shooters think ammo is oxygen and that if they can't consume vast quantities every day, they'll die. I don't shoot on average more than 50 rounds a month when prices are good. Hell, I won't pay $15 for a box of 45acp just to go blast it at the range.

 

[djl02]

I posed a scenario earlier that nobody seemed to want to debate. If and when 22 bulk packs go down to $20 or lower, I plan to buy several as an investment. Even if there's no future panic, they should be a better investment than any savings acount or bank cd. 5-6 years ago, federal bulk packs at Wally World were $11.95. Before the big panic, they were $18.95. What other investment could gain you that kind of return? Why is it so terrible to do this with ammo and not gold, stocks, bonds, etc?

I thought about selling a 50 cal ammo can full of Federal, back in December.People told me it wasn't worth over 150.00. I think I had around 18 a brick in it,plus the ammo can. I decided to just keep it. There was places onlone sold out that had 5k for 800.00. Talk about goudging.

 

[hornadylnl]

Wow Hornandy...That was damn near perfectly said....Did you cut and paste that????

Considering 45% of INGOers who voted in the gas for a penny poll, I'd say it is dead on. Those same people feel no shame in taking gas for a penny a gallon but will complain when it goes up 10 cents Friday afternoon. They wouldn't know character and integrity if it punched them in the mouth.

 

[sb0]

This ins't limited to just guns and ammo though. Take any particular commodity that's near and dear to the hearts of that group and they'll feel the same way. Look at building materials and generators during natural disasters.

I remembered this video from an earlier gouging thread and just found it. I don't see how anyone can argue the logic presented but they will.
Is Price Gouging Immoral? Should It Be Illegal? - YouTube

You may be right.

Actually I was just having a discussion about this last night, completely unrelated, about price gouging for tree removal somewhere in NY. Of course mostly what I was hearing and reading was incoherent rants laced with terms like "greed" and "vultures".

If Walmart's price on a bulk pack was $40 or more, I doubt the mall ninjas would be out shooting the rifling out of their tacticool 22's every weekend. But then Walmart would be the evil greedy gougers. I don't understand why so many shooters think ammo is oxygen and that if they can't consume vast quantities every day, they'll die. I don't shoot on average more than 50 rounds a month when prices are good. Hell, I won't pay $15 for a box of 45acp just to go blast it at the range.

Well that was one of my points.

Try to cheat the market and you wind up with very inefficient allocation, which is exactly what you're describing.

Price gouging (correction: market driven pricing) provides for the most efficient distribution based on need, determined by willingness to pay, not luck. This forces consumers to cut back on such wasteful consumption.

 

[hornadylnl]

I thought about selling a 50 cal ammo can full of Federal, back in December.People told me it wasn't worth over 150.00. I think I had around 18 a brick in it,plus the ammo can. I decided to just keep it. There was places onlone sold out that had 5k for 800.00. Talk about goudging.

I could have made a killing off of my stockpile of 22. The most I paid for a brick was $14. Lets say I had 20 bricks and had $280 invested. I sold those bricks for $50 each and got $1000. Wow, a $720 profit. I'd be beating down the door of every Ferrari dealer in town with that kind of money. For a measly $720, I'd rather watch the whiners suffer.

 

[jamil]

I'm just going to say it. OP, if you want to point some blame at someone, look in the mirror. We have a situation where the demand is high. Doesn't matter why. A few decades ago people paid a lot of money for ****ing rocks. Demand is demand.

But we have several large outlets selling bricks for near pre-panic prices. The so-called flippers are getting their supplies from these places. The demand driven price IS $35 - $50 per brick. If you don't luck out and find the deals the flippers are getting, you either pay market price, or you go without.

It's not the people's fault who are willing to pay that much per brick. They want what they want. They'll pay what they're willing. That's their choice. Blaming them is absurd.

It's not the flippers fault either. They see a business opportunity. Why wouldn't people with an entrepreneurial spirit think to buy below market price and sell at market price? They're not setting the price, the market is.

It's not the hoarders fault who keep buying it up from the big box stores at below market prices. Horn has shown pictures of his stash that he rightfully boasts he bought at less than $14 / brick long before this shortage. You don't blame him for holding his inventory. Why blame people who are buying at below market prices now and holding onto it?

No. Really, it's your fault. Sort of. You are projecting your morals onto the supply chain. You expect them not to raise their prices to meet demand. The big guys are complying with your overzealous demands. The cost of making .22 hasn't gone up, and in good faith, manufacturers haven't raised their prices. The major outlets--TO APPEASE YOU--have mostly kept the price the same. They've seen how you turn on companies that you think are betraying you.

So we're stuck in this pattern. The demand is high. The true market price is also high. But there's a huge part of the supply chain that maintains remarkably lower prices than the market price. Why WOULD you think that ammo should stay on the shelves? Why WOULD you expect that some people won't think to turn their luck into a few dollars by selling? Whenever I luck out and see a brick for $20, and I sometimes luck out, you bet I'm going to buy it. And then head to the range. I'm not going to flip it because shooting it is more important to me than doubling my return. But I'm not going to blame people for not ignoring the opportunity.

So, do you want to take part in bringing an end to this? It won't and can't be swift. But it will work much better than posting rants, blaming people who don't really deserve it. Here's whatcha do. Write letters to manufacturers like Winchester, CCI/Federal, etc. Write letters to big box retailers. Wal-mart, Cabelas, Brownells, Bass Pro, Dickheads, etc. Tell them they have your permission to price ammo at market value.

Once everything is accurately priced for the market, the product will stay on the shelves. As people are less willing to pay the price, the longer it stays on the shelves. They will then lower their prices to keep it moving. At some point, the market will reach equilibrium and the crisis will be over.

But I will say this. Once this is over, if there are no other scary events, I think you'll see prices settle to below pre-panic levels.

 

[sb0]

No. Really, it's your fault. Sort of. You are projecting your morals onto the supply chain. You expect them not to raise their prices to meet demand. The big guys are complying with your overzealous demands. The cost of making .22 hasn't gone up, and in good faith, manufacturers haven't raised their prices. The major outlets--TO APPEASE YOU--have mostly kept the price the same. They've seen how you turn on companies that you think are betraying you.

Bingo.

 

[shibumiseeker]

This ins't limited to just guns and ammo though. Take any particular commodity that's near and dear to the hearts of that group and they'll feel the same way. Look at building materials and generators during natural disasters.

I remembered this video from an earlier gouging thread and just found it. I don't see how anyone can argue the logic presented but they will.
Is Price Gouging Immoral? Should It Be Illegal? - YouTube

If Walmart's price on a bulk pack was $40 or more, I doubt the mall ninjas would be out shooting the rifling out of their tacticool 22's every weekend. But then Walmart would be the evil greedy gougers. I don't understand why so many shooters think ammo is oxygen and that if they can't consume vast quantities every day, they'll die. I don't shoot on average more than 50 rounds a month when prices are good. Hell, I won't pay $15 for a box of 45acp just to go blast it at the range.

Meh, if it's cheap relative to income, a portion of folks will waste it. It's not up to me to tell someone that their blasting away a box of ammo is any more or less important than my carefully shooting each shot: if they can afford it and it doesn't take away from my ability, more power to them. But I am also not going to have any sympathy for them when they have to pay double or triple for the same fun, any more than the person starving on the street (real starvation, not the fake poverty many seem to have here) would have any sympathy for me for each pull of the trigger I make that just wastes the equivalent of a meal for them.

Lots of people on this site see no issue with driving an 8mpg truck that sits in the parking lot at work all day, and then complaining about how much gas costs. If they want the satisfaction of driving that truck and wasting that resource then they have to bear the cost. I got no sympathy for them because they have alternatives. I have sympathy for the guy who has to have that truck to earn his living and who has a harder time affording that fuel because all the folks driving around burning it simply because they can. Hell, every Earth Day on this site you get the folks who proudly claim they are going to flip on very light in the house just to waste the power.

 

[hornadylnl]

I'm just going to say it. OP, if you want to point some blame at someone, look in the mirror. We have a situation where the demand is high. Doesn't matter why. A few decades ago people paid a lot of money for ****ing rocks. Demand is demand.

But we have several large outlets selling bricks for near pre-panic prices. The so-called flippers are getting their supplies from these places. The demand driven price IS $35 - $50 per brick. If you don't luck out and find the deals the flippers are getting, you either pay market price, or you go without.

It's not the people's fault who are willing to pay that much per brick. They want what they want. They'll pay what they're willing. That's their choice. Blaming them is absurd.

It's not the flippers fault either. They see a business opportunity. Why wouldn't people with an entrepreneurial spirit think to buy below market price and sell at market price? They're not setting the price, the market is.

It's not the hoarders fault who keep buying it up from the big box stores at below market prices. Horn has shown pictures of his stash that he rightfully boasts he bought at less than $14 / brick long before this shortage. You don't blame him for holding his inventory. Why blame people who are buying at below market prices now and holding onto it?

No. Really, it's your fault. Sort of. You are projecting your morals onto the supply chain. You expect them not to raise their prices to meet demand. The big guys are complying with your overzealous demands. The cost of making .22 hasn't gone up, and in good faith, manufacturers haven't raised their prices. The major outlets--TO APPEASE YOU--have mostly kept the price the same. They've seen how you turn on companies that you think are betraying you.

So we're stuck in this pattern. The demand is high. The true market price is also high. But there's a huge part of the supply chain that maintains remarkably lower prices than the market price. Why WOULD you think that ammo should stay on the shelves? Why WOULD you expect that some people won't think to turn their luck into a few dollars by selling? Whenever I luck out and see a brick for $20, and I sometimes luck out, you bet I'm going to buy it. And then head to the range. I'm not going to flip it because shooting it is more important to me than doubling my return. But I'm not going to blame people for not ignoring the opportunity.

So, do you want to take part in bringing an end to this? It won't and can't be swift. But it will work much better than posting rants, blaming people who don't really deserve it. Here's whatcha do. Write letters to manufacturers like Winchester, CCI/Federal, etc. Write letters to big box retailers. Wal-mart, Cabelas, Brownells, Bass Pro, Dickheads, etc. Tell them they have your permission to price ammo at market value.

Once everything is accurately priced for the market, the product will stay on the shelves. As people are less willing to pay the price, the longer it stays on the shelves. They will then lower their prices to keep it moving. At some point, the market will reach equilibrium and the crisis will be over.

But I will say this. Once this is over, if there are no other scary events, I think you'll see prices settle to below pre-panic levels.

If lobster were a buck a pound, I'd eat it every day. That is until lobsters become extinct.

 

[jamil]

I could have made a killing off of my stockpile of 22. The most I paid for a brick was $14. Lets say I had 20 bricks and had $280 invested. I sold those bricks for $50 each and got $1000. Wow, a $720 profit. I'd be beating down the door of every Ferrari dealer in town with that kind of money. For a measly $720, I'd rather watch the whiners suffer.

People don't get this. When you hold one of your bricks of .22 in your hand, you're not holding $14. You're holding $50. So you have a choice. If that brick is worth more to you than the $50, you'll keep holding onto it. If not, you'll sell it and take the money. That doesn't make you evil.

The "hoarders" and "flippers" have the same choice. They luck out and find a $50 value in Walmart for $20. Of COURSE they buy it!

 

[hornadylnl]

Meh, if it's cheap relative to income, a portion of folks will waste it. It's not up to me to tell someone that their blasting away a box of ammo is any more or less important than my carefully shooting each shot: if they can afford it and it doesn't take away from my ability, more power to them. But I am also not going to have any sympathy for them when they have to pay double or triple for the same fun, any more than the person starving on the street (real starvation, not the fake poverty many seem to have here) would have any sympathy for me for each pull of the trigger I make that just wastes the equivalent of a meal for them.

Lots of people on this site see no issue with driving an 8mpg truck that sits in the parking lot at work all day, and then complaining about how much gas costs. If they want the satisfaction of driving that truck and wasting that resource then they have to bear the cost. I got no sympathy for them because they have alternatives. I have sympathy for the guy who has to have that truck to earn his living and who has a harder time affording that fuel because all the folks driving around burning it simply because they can. Hell, every Earth Day on this site you get the folks who proudly claim they are going to flip on very light in the house just to waste the power.

I don't care if guys are shooting 22lr gatlin guns at 10,000 rounds a minute. I just can't stand the notion that they can't figure that their consumption is playing a massive part in the shortage.

Take the shooter that shoots a bulk pack every week. That's 52 bulk packs every year. If he cuts down to 1 a month, he shoots 1/4 of what he did before. If enough shooters did that, the demand would reduce drastically. Sure, you'd still have those stockpiling it but the stockpile remains while the shooter consumes. It's those who think they're entitled to pay the same price and consume the same levels regardless of market conditions that irritate me.

 

[shibumiseeker]

It's those who think they're entitled to pay the same price and consume the same levels regardless of market conditions that irritate me.

Hence my comment about the guy who drives the 8mpg truck to work and complains about gas costs.

 

[hornadylnl]

People don't get this. When you hold one of your bricks of .22 in your hand, you're not holding $14. You're holding $50. So you have a choice. If that brick is worth more to you than the $50, you'll keep holding onto it. If not, you'll sell it and take the money. That doesn't make you evil.

The "hoarders" and "flippers" have the same choice. They luck out and find a $50 value in Walmart for $20. Of COURSE they buy it!

$30 a brick profit sounds like a massive profit. But you'd have to sell hundreds of those to start talking about some serious money. How many trips to Walmart, Gander, etc are needed at how many hours of standing in line could possibly be worth that $30 per brick? I've got way better ways to earn money than that.

 

[hornadylnl]

Hence my comment about the guy who drives the 8mpg truck to work and complains about gas costs.

And they're the same ones who will sit in the parking lot for 30 minutes before work with their truck idling to keep themselves warm.

I don't understand the disconnect with people and how they view pricing. It's no different of a 100 pound woman scared to death of a mouse only weighing a few ounces. They're trained to be scared. It doesn't matter if a person makes minimum wage or $100k per year, they complain about gas prices. They're trained to complain about them.

 

[sb0]

$30 a brick profit sounds like a massive profit. But you'd have to sell hundreds of those to start talking about some serious money. How many trips to Walmart, Gander, etc are needed at how many hours of standing in line could possibly be worth that $30 per brick? I've got way better ways to earn money than that.

Another thing that gougers do that most of us are not willing to do. Wake up at whatever hour in the morning to get their hands on some. That alone is worth 30 bucks to me, driving, searching out product, etc.

Gougers make their purchases more efficiently because they seek out quantity, then create a distribution channel for the end consumer that is much more efficient than endless ammo hunting. Everybody wins. Time is money after all.

 

[Vlad the Impaler]

I made it through page 2 of this thread.

I wish I had sold off all of my AR mags on e-bay one year ago for $30 to $50 each.
I would have bought them all back in the subsequent year for $10 to $16.
I was 90% confident D. Feinstein would go pound sand, but the 10% doubt kept me into what I had.

I recently inventoried my ammo and determined I could spare a couple thousand rounds of 22LR. I reflected on my AR magazine situation in the past year.
I posted my Remington 22LR stock and had a full price buyer in a couple hours. Nice guy, had recently bought a 22 for his wife and they wanted to get out shooting. We both left happy.
I was, and am, 100% confident I'll be able to restock enough 22LR in the near future. I turned all the cash from that transaction into a complete lower build kit once I had a buyer on the hook. That shouldn't matter to you any more than if I tossed it over the bar for Wild Turkey boiler makers, or cheap hookers in Vegas.

If you value something for sale more than I do, it's yours.
If you don't value it more than I do, cry to someone who cares, if that's how you like to spend your time.

BTW, all the guys that won't sell me an M1 for what they paid at the CMP two years back are gougers and asshats!

 

[hornadylnl]

I wonder how many complaining about gouging use the "investment" excuse to placate their wives when expanding their gun collection.

 

[jamil]

I don't care if guys are shooting 22lr gatlin guns at 10,000 rounds a minute. I just can't stand the notion that they can't figure that their consumption is playing a massive part in the shortage.

There is no shortage of .22LR. There is a shortage of .22LR on the shelves at walmart because they're selling it at half price. Nothing sold at half price stays on the shelves long. But anyone can buy 22LR if they're willing to pay market price.

I'm not shooting more 22 than I did before the panic. A brick usually lasts me 5 or 6 range trips. That's a few months. I'm not going to stop going to the range and I'm not going to stop replenishing my supply just because some people perceive it to be in short supply.

$30 a brick profit sounds like a massive profit. But you'd have to sell hundreds of those to start talking about some serious money. How many trips to Walmart, Gander, etc are needed at how many hours of standing in line could possibly be worth that $30 per brick? I've got way better ways to earn money than that.

That's the choice you make. I would make the same choice if I had 20K rds. My stash is 1/10 of that. I really enjoy shooting. It's worth more to me to shoot than to sell. But it's still the same option for everyone who's holding something they bought for way less than it's worth.

Another thing that gougers do that most of us are not willing to do. Wake up at whatever hour in the morning to get their hands on some. That alone is worth 30 bucks to me, driving, searching out product, etc.

Gougers make their purchases more efficiently because they seek out quantity, then create a distribution channel for the end consumer that is much more efficient than endless ammo hunting. Everybody wins. Time is money after all.

I don't blame people for wanting to make a profit. Several months into the panic I did blame the flippers and gougers until I thought about the market implications and what's really causing the bare shelves at the big box stores. We don't wonder why you can't find some gizmo at the stores that have them on sale and the stores that don't have them on sale have plenty.

 

[Sigblaster]

People don't get this. When you hold one of your bricks of .22 in your hand, you're not holding $14. You're holding $50. So you have a choice. If that brick is worth more to you than the $50, you'll keep holding onto it. If not, you'll sell it and take the money. That doesn't make you evil.

The "hoarders" and "flippers" have the same choice. They luck out and find a $50 value in Walmart for $20. Of COURSE they buy it!

I faced the same choice last year when .223 prices were jumping. I had enough that I could part with 1000 rounds easy. So I took ammo that I paid $200 for years ago and flipped it for a total of $600. Took that and bought a nice S&W revolver.

I never would have considered selling that ammo for what I paid for it, as I didn't know when I would be able to replace it. The people who wanted it were willing to pay more to have it immediately, and I was willing to take the chance that I would have enough ammo for my needs until the market bounced back. We both benefited in our own way.

 

[rugertoter]

Glad I don't have to worry about it anymore. I sold my .22, and all the ammo with it, and bought another center fire gun. Besides for plinking and small game hunting, the .22 is basically useless. Yeah, I suppose with a really good shot you could kill an attacker with it, and it is certainly better than your fist, but it just was not worth all the hassle anymore for me. JMHO.