8 ms·

It's hilarious to US CS items/weapons as a retirement portfolio when you could get pretty damn good and government protected monopoly by buying NFA machine guns

It's hilarious to US CS items/weapons as a retirement portfolio when you could get pretty damn good and government protected monopoly by buying NFA machine guns knowing the number is capped and the price is likely to only go up. These are now being used by actual retirement funds. http://machinegunpriceguide.com/html/german_subguns_0.html http://machinegunpriceguide.com/html/german_subguns_0.html

antonymoose 1y ago
Link to the retirement fund? I’m surprised to hear that bit, there are way too many lawsuits flying around right now in the gun the world to consider that kind of risk. Then again perhaps the fund managers taking on fees are the real point.
- esseph 1y ago
  There is no profit without risk
rhcom2 1y ago
Relying on the sanity and/or consistency of government policy would keep me up at night.
- mothballed 1y ago
  I would sleep perfectly soundly if it relied on politicians not wanting the plebs they subjugate to have easier access to machine guns, which is what keeps their value up. As for current NFA items holder, the constitution requires them to be compensated fair value if they are to be confiscated. The risk is arguably lower than many single stocks, many of which are bought in retirement portfolio.
  - mlyle 1y ago
    > As for current NFA items holder, the constitution requires them to be compensated fair value if they are to be confiscated. There's plenty of ways to not confiscate them but impair their value. Further restrictions on transfer, restrictions on use, disadvantaged tax treatment, requirements for storage, security, insurance, bonding, etc.
    - mothballed 1y ago
      The government has imposed most of those on gold at various times yet it continues to be a component of many investor portfolios.
      - mlyle 1y ago
        There's an international market in gold. NFA firearms have an artificially high value because of the exact set of legal restrictions that the government has put in place: loose enough to not crater legal demand, yet tight enough to restrict legal supply. This market is tied to within US borders. The government can destroy the assumptions behind this market with a stroke of the pen.
        mothballed 1y ago
        The government can destroy the assumptions on which many businesses are built, that are held as stocks in an investment portfolio. Move the goalposts to relation to international markets, and I will likely find how it applies to some other asset commonly found in investment portfolios, like perhaps the current values of some tax preparation companies.
        mlyle 1y ago
        Your original assertion was "...by buying NFA machine guns knowing the number is capped and the price is likely to only go up" Later you said lower risk than many individual stocks. Maybe, maybe not depending on how we define things. But I do think it's quite possible for the price to go down.
        cindyllm 1y ago
        [dead]
  - akerl_ 1y ago
    > As for current NFA items holder, the constitution requires them to be compensated fair value if they are to be confiscated. Where is that in the constitution?
    - mothballed 1y ago
      5th amendment
      - akerl_ 1y ago
        I think you may have to check the text again? The 5th amendment says you get due process, and requires compensation if something is taken for “public use”. Passing a law which you can challenge in court that says “machine guns are illegal now, turn them in so we can melt them down for scrap” is not public use.
        mothballed 1y ago
        Taking it for the public smelting furnace for the state to melt down under the auspices of public safety is a public use.
        akerl_ 1y ago
        You can pretty clearly see this isn’t the case. Prior to the reversal of the bump stock ban, owners of bump stocks were required to surrender or destroy them.
        mothballed 1y ago
        That's because the state argued they were unregistered machine guns, thus never legally held property. It is not at all comparable to legal, stamped machine guns then being made illegal. The EO couldn't have forced an uncompensated surrender of a registered bump stock, were it one existed before the Hughes Amendment.
- agentcoops 1y ago
  I mean, I think they’ve proven over the last century that the single thing they’re good at is protecting the regular payment of dividends (and of course buybacks more recently)… One might not be entirely mistaken to compare expecting much more than that from the modern state to expecting Valve to protect your skin investments.
mikkupikku 1y ago
That market could crash overnight with a single SCOTUS ruling against the NFA.
- mothballed 1y ago
  NFA for machine guns will never be overruled, never. The odds of Hughes amendment being ruled against, are one iota above nil.
  - the_gipsy 1y ago
    Yea yea, you could have said that about any number of things the current administration did - so far.
    - mothballed 1y ago
      Trump banned bump stocks because he thought they were too close to machine guns. Ron Paul and maybe Massie are about the only politicians of my lifetime that held any real power that I can think of that would even entertain deregulating machine guns.
      - ars 1y ago
        And the supreme court ruled against the bump stock ban. Which is also why the Forced Reset Trigger was not banned - they didn't think they could.
        mothballed 1y ago
        They could likely get away with banning the FRT and bump stock through amending the definition of the machine gun in congress, just not the executive branch. The ruling on those had nothing to do with overruling any part of the NFA. Only correctly identifying that FRT and bump stocks do not shoot automatically more than one shot by a single function of the trigger, which is what congress said would be the things allowed to be called machine guns.
        1y ago
wffurr 1y ago
Wow the home page on that website is a real piece of work. It's amazing to me that someone can honestly believe all those things.
- lovich 1y ago
  Yea, kinda hard to believe the numbers when the website appears to be run by someone bordering on time cube levels of delusion
- krapp 1y ago
  Most American conservatives and Trumpists believe most if not all of those things from my experience, and a lot of what's on that site now reflects official American government policy. The only surprise I see there is at least implied pro-Ukraine sentiment.
  - 3626351828272 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - wffurr 1y ago
    Having it all laid out together like that makes it obvious how inconsistent it all is. The mental gymnastics to actually believe all that stuff must be incredible. I read the other day about a theory on to obviously false beliefs as a form of in-group signaling and I can't read this collection any other way.

antonymoose 1y ago

Link to the retirement fund? I’m surprised to hear that bit, there are way too many lawsuits flying around right now in the gun the world to consider that kind of risk. Then again perhaps the fund managers taking on fees are the real point.

esseph 1y ago
There is no profit without risk

rhcom2 1y ago

Relying on the sanity and/or consistency of government policy would keep me up at night.

mothballed 1y ago
I would sleep perfectly soundly if it relied on politicians not wanting the plebs they subjugate to have easier access to machine guns, which is what keeps their value up. As for current NFA items holder, the constitution requires them to be compensated fair value if they are to be confiscated. The risk is arguably lower than many single stocks, many of which are bought in retirement portfolio.
- mlyle 1y ago
  > As for current NFA items holder, the constitution requires them to be compensated fair value if they are to be confiscated. There's plenty of ways to not confiscate them but impair their value. Further restrictions on transfer, restrictions on use, disadvantaged tax treatment, requirements for storage, security, insurance, bonding, etc.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    The government has imposed most of those on gold at various times yet it continues to be a component of many investor portfolios.
    - mlyle 1y ago
      There's an international market in gold. NFA firearms have an artificially high value because of the exact set of legal restrictions that the government has put in place: loose enough to not crater legal demand, yet tight enough to restrict legal supply. This market is tied to within US borders. The government can destroy the assumptions behind this market with a stroke of the pen.
      - mothballed 1y ago
        The government can destroy the assumptions on which many businesses are built, that are held as stocks in an investment portfolio. Move the goalposts to relation to international markets, and I will likely find how it applies to some other asset commonly found in investment portfolios, like perhaps the current values of some tax preparation companies.
        mlyle 1y ago
        Your original assertion was "...by buying NFA machine guns knowing the number is capped and the price is likely to only go up" Later you said lower risk than many individual stocks. Maybe, maybe not depending on how we define things. But I do think it's quite possible for the price to go down.
        cindyllm 1y ago
        [dead]
- akerl_ 1y ago
  > As for current NFA items holder, the constitution requires them to be compensated fair value if they are to be confiscated. Where is that in the constitution?
  - mothballed 1y ago
    5th amendment
    - akerl_ 1y ago
      I think you may have to check the text again? The 5th amendment says you get due process, and requires compensation if something is taken for “public use”. Passing a law which you can challenge in court that says “machine guns are illegal now, turn them in so we can melt them down for scrap” is not public use.
      - mothballed 1y ago
        Taking it for the public smelting furnace for the state to melt down under the auspices of public safety is a public use.
        akerl_ 1y ago
        You can pretty clearly see this isn’t the case. Prior to the reversal of the bump stock ban, owners of bump stocks were required to surrender or destroy them.
        mothballed 1y ago
        That's because the state argued they were unregistered machine guns, thus never legally held property. It is not at all comparable to legal, stamped machine guns then being made illegal. The EO couldn't have forced an uncompensated surrender of a registered bump stock, were it one existed before the Hughes Amendment.
agentcoops 1y ago
I mean, I think they’ve proven over the last century that the single thing they’re good at is protecting the regular payment of dividends (and of course buybacks more recently)… One might not be entirely mistaken to compare expecting much more than that from the modern state to expecting Valve to protect your skin investments.

mikkupikku 1y ago

That market could crash overnight with a single SCOTUS ruling against the NFA.

mothballed 1y ago
NFA for machine guns will never be overruled, never. The odds of Hughes amendment being ruled against, are one iota above nil.
- the_gipsy 1y ago
  Yea yea, you could have said that about any number of things the current administration did - so far.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    Trump banned bump stocks because he thought they were too close to machine guns. Ron Paul and maybe Massie are about the only politicians of my lifetime that held any real power that I can think of that would even entertain deregulating machine guns.
    - ars 1y ago
      And the supreme court ruled against the bump stock ban. Which is also why the Forced Reset Trigger was not banned - they didn't think they could.
      - mothballed 1y ago
        They could likely get away with banning the FRT and bump stock through amending the definition of the machine gun in congress, just not the executive branch. The ruling on those had nothing to do with overruling any part of the NFA. Only correctly identifying that FRT and bump stocks do not shoot automatically more than one shot by a single function of the trigger, which is what congress said would be the things allowed to be called machine guns.
      - 1y ago

wffurr 1y ago

Wow the home page on that website is a real piece of work. It's amazing to me that someone can honestly believe all those things.

lovich 1y ago
Yea, kinda hard to believe the numbers when the website appears to be run by someone bordering on time cube levels of delusion
krapp 1y ago
Most American conservatives and Trumpists believe most if not all of those things from my experience, and a lot of what's on that site now reflects official American government policy. The only surprise I see there is at least implied pro-Ukraine sentiment.
- 3626351828272 1y ago
  [flagged]
- wffurr 1y ago
  Having it all laid out together like that makes it obvious how inconsistent it all is. The mental gymnastics to actually believe all that stuff must be incredible. I read the other day about a theory on to obviously false beliefs as a form of in-group signaling and I can't read this collection any other way.