The story below surely created quite a stir all over airsoft community fora, coupled with reports from other airsoft news sites adding to the crescendo about the inevitable demise of ACM Airsoft. If you read the story carefully, it doesn't actually paint a doomsday scenario. It means "sit tight and watch the show as it will end with a happily ever after". Well "happily ever after" may not necessarily be permanent.

The ACM airsoft industry will pick up the pieces, as it's always like a multi-headed hydra. Cut one off, and another grows again. It is always like that in any business where it is profitable, even given the risks involved. Ask the drug lords, they have the PhDs in high risk ventures. Even in the intellectual property fight, it's always a cat and mouse game, but it never ends. So we just sit tight and watch the show.

The laws in Mainland China do not allow the manufacture of guns unless it is a regulated one for the Chinese PLA. But in terms of airsoft, since these are replicas of the real thing, and also considred as a toy in other countries, it is in a gray area. Airsoft guns may look intimidating, but they are harmless to the rule of the Chinese Communist Party, even if the trigger is pulled. At the end of the day, as long as they do not pose a threat to the perpetuity of Communist rule in the Motherland, airsoft will go on its usual business.

Right now, the ACM airsoft manufacturers are laying low where they operate. We asked our contacts in Hong Kong and Mainland China on what they see with regards to the developments last week, and they say, it's already a given fact. The police would sometimes raid the manufacturers, have some photo op of airsoft guns being destroyed, then give it a cooling period of at least a month, and the operations will be almost back to normal for these manufacturers. Supplies in Hong Kong are normal, and even A&K might still continue production especially with the an agreement with Magpul PTS on the Masada ACR. And it's a merry-go-round, a cycle that manufacturers are used to.

The molds used in production may have been confiscated, but they are not irreplaceable. It will take a while to create the molds for certain models, say around 3 months, unless the molds confiscated are the old ones and the new ones were stored safely somewhere.

More, the ACM airsoft industry provides jobs to a whole lot of Chinese people, though working conditions and manufacturing standards are another debate altogehter. Remove an income from the citizens and you get a more angry crowd. Especially in Guandong where there have been many factories shut down due to lack of orders from outside, given the global economic crisis. There is discontent from many people who are out of jobs, and that discontent is what the government wants to avoid. Adding more to the fire won't help.

There are new models coming out such as the Jing Gong Full Metal M4 Gas Blowback rifle. So we expect some new stuff during the Holidays. Right now, we should not write off ACM airsoft, it is alive, though wobbled a little bit.

The only time the ACM airsoft will die is the time when nobody buys from them at all.