[hga]

I don't believe you're showing you get the point (while making a lot of good tangential points). I seem to remember that government's cost for buying a M4 is something like $600 in quantity, but I forget if that was Colt's price before they lost the contract to FN like they lost the M16 contract (the Army buys the former, the Marines, who are still riflemen, the latter with its much longer barrel necessary to achieve bare minimum performance with normal military ammo).

So presumably in an arming the militia regime, our cost would be lower than the 1-2K you postulate, probably even lower due to massive quantity. With of course subsidies to help the poor ^_^.

(Beginning modified, for bmelton not surprisingly does get the point.)

[bmelton]

Oh, I got the point, but historically, it went the other way around. It was the government's duty to provide firearms to the militia for those that didn't have them themselves.

That said, your sub-point is humorous, but overlooks that if modeled after the ACA, subsidized M16s would be available for near free, while non-subsidized M16s would be ~$4,000-$5,000, if you're in too high a tax bracket.