Russia’s Gun Production And Sales Hit By Sanctions And Restrictions – OpEd
By Paul Goble
Sanctions which are blocking the sale of Russian guns abroad and the import of both guns and component parts for Russian guns are now being joined by a new Russian law reclassifying certain guns and imposing new limitations on purchases to restrict both the production, sale and possession of weapons, gun industry specialists say.
Indeed, they suggest that it is now difficult if not impossible to say which of these two factors is having the greater impact and that fears that either Western countries or Moscow itself will impose additional limits means that few Russian producers are developing or offering new lines of guns to the Russian market (profile.ru/society/bez-prava-na-vystrel-sankcii-i-ogranicheniya-mogut-ubit-rossijskij-rynok-grazhdanskogo-oruzhiya-1116125/).
This means that the number of Russians who own guns legally, now listed as being around four million, will either stagnate or decline; but it may very well mean that the number of underground producers, sellers, and owners will increase unless the likely price rises put these weapons beyond reach.
But perhaps the most serious consequence of the combination of Russian government restrictions and Western sanctions in this area will be that yet another sector of the market will be driven underground, lessening the ability of the authorities to control it and making it more likely that the remaining market will be controlled by criminal elements.
