Earlier this year, I made a good call on purchasing an AR style rifle, knowing the election could easily put them out of reach. My fears seem to be well founded as stories of gun shops selling out of gear and long waiting times on receivers and the such are popping up left and right.
Make no mistake about it, Barack Obama is an enemy of the Second Amendment. While he may not have as much time to go after guns since he'll be too busy trying to explain why everyone isn't getting their ponies and unicorns as fast as he promised, he will sign any gun control bill that passes his desk.
This means that trying to get magazines, ammunition, or anything else related to shooting is going to get harder to come by. Everyone knows this, hence the run on firearms. It is sad because just like the last AWB, crime will not be reduced one iota, yet the rights of every last American will be infringed.
Financially, I do ok. My wife gets to stay home with the kids and isn't required to work. We bought a house we could afford rather than something we didn't need. We shove money aside for both college for the girls and retirement, the latter of which has taken a bit of a beating recently. However, there's not much left over to feed my gun habit. In fact, just feeding the guns puts a strain on things, hence why I try to reload as much as possible.
Now comes the dilemma. In order to shoot IPSC or IDPA, I'm going to need to purchase reloading gear for .45 ACP. Dies, bullets, a new powder drop, brass and various other things that come along with a new caliber is going to be a good chunk of change that I've saved up from bumper sticker and shirt sales. Which would be ok since I've budgeted for that.
What I don't have are spare magazines for the AR and I'm dangerously low on ammunition. Like, only 60 rounds or so. I have one, ten round, 6.8 SPC magazine and that's it. Now, luckily for me, 6.8SPC isn't a popular caliber so magazines are still available. I really should purchase enough components for another 200 rounds minimum and have enough magazines to at least hold 100 rounds, but in order to do that I'll have to use the money for the .45 reloading which will effectively cut me off from shooting competitively for a while.
Both need to happen, I just need to figure out which one needs to happen first. I hate to give up on IPSC so soon, but I fear a 20 or 30 round magazine is going to be impossible to purchase legally in 6 months to a year. The .45 stuff will probably be easier to procure later, but that means less time actually shooting, which sucks. Bad.
Maybe I should just buy the magazines now and worry about filling them up later. I'd say I could use my tax return, but Lord knows if there's going to be any money coming back (Obama just about considers me 'rich').
Dilemmas dilemmas.