True, but deals involve selling to governments, and also getting your own government to agree to the deal (i.e. a KR shipyard will not sell us a new submarine without the KR government approval, even if it is privately owned).
also, people dont imagine how difficult and expensive it is to develop and test a new weapons platform, its not something you can do with a GoFundMe campaign.
ncsist somehow works with foreigners. but they are just one of organizations work with MND. you can see a list of such organizations here.
there is a call for proposal from MND.
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Yes, it goes without saying that applicable laws must be followed. As for cost… not everything is a billion dollar program.
Basically taiwan is about face. fragile egos that need to be navigated with extreme care. this is why that billionaire started his own militia training scheme. because the social norms are obvious and it is easier to start your own thing than trying to help an ego centric entity with severe retardation issues.
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Honestly I would love to start a gun company if I could…
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1 - do you have any industry specific skills beyond normal machining that would make this realistic?
2 - have you looked into what it would take to do this?
I’m pretty good at gunsmithing.
- It would be nearly impossible because again, weapon control law in Taiwan is very strict.
1 - experienced, or assumed? this a job you’ve done?
2 - yes, I’m sure it’s strict. but have you looked into what it’d take, or are you assuming it’s close to impossible? strict and impossible are not the same, and one doesn’t even necessarily imply the other.
I never got paid for a gunsmithing job, you need a FFL to do that even in the US.
I said it’s impossible because for me it is practically impossible. Probably billions of dollars to start a large company, much of which is used to apply to the government for permits and such, as well as getting ok’ed from the military. It’s one of those thing if you gotta ask you can’t afford it.
This isn’t America where you can just get a manufacturing FFL and be done with it. The civilian arms market is extremely small in Taiwan.
Sooooo… you haven’t looked into it? 
Look dude, if this is something you’re actually interested in, why not look into it and see if it’s possible?
Why would you start with an assumption that you’d limit yourself to serving the Taiwan civilian market? I’d start with an assumption that you’d want to serve the crazy US market. (if I wanted to start a gun company, I’d start by making California compliant guns. Scratch that - CA compliant lowers. Huge market of gun nuts there that are more limited in what they can buy and open to some whacky things).
Because I am not a US citizen, and ITAR rules pretty much eliminates me as a person to have anything to do with arms in the US. Also, I have felony records, which also means I’m out as far as that goes. In the US felony records, even for something like peeing in public, is code word for “not a person, less than animals” in the US legal system.
And as to other markets, well not being a citizen is a huge bar too. Citizenship is really important for any defense related things.
ITAR is, as far as I recall, all about exports and retransfers originating from the US.
Presumably you’d set up a Taiwanese company to export. But I’m not even sure a felony would prevent you from personally exporting from Taiwan to the US, if you were legal in Taiwan.
The US imports a shit ton of guns from other countries. Those companies don’t need to be run by US citizens. That’s probably the case for most other countries. And guns doesn’t automatically mean defense, but even if it did, it’s not like defense contractors are keeping a roster of foreign nationals on board to make sales legit.
Taiwan government has loads of money, why would anyone want to do this?
Is there any possibility of you starting your gun company in the Philippines? Just buying and selling? Or do you plan to manufacture new guns?
I see that Taiwan already has some firearms indigenously manufactured by Taiwanese manufacturers, although it seems to be firmly under government control. Maybe locals could comment more.
Interesting story about the founder of Glock.
" Glock began as a manufacturer of curtain rods in the 1960s, and knives for the Austrian military in the 1970s,[2] and did not design or manufacture a firearm until he was 52 years old."
I prefer manufacturing. Buying and selling is something that business people do, and I’m not good at politics.
That is what I have been saying the whole time, that weapons manufacture in Taiwan is firmly under government control. There is no way a private individual can even begin to get into it. It’s probably the same in China too. I could possibly manufacture knives (as long as it’s not a prohibited knife) however.
There doesn’t seem to be a weapons culture in Taiwan. Many security guards I have seen are unarmed.
Despite being here for a short while, I agree that the country is relatively safe in terms of violent crime, so perhaps armed guards are seen as not necessary.
The problem is that when an unfriendly neighbor comes knocking, I hope it will not be too late to develop a competent militia and mobilize the economy to defend the country.
I feel that one of the hurdles unmentioned so far to defense entrepreneurship in Taiwan are mainland Chinese spies. They have apparently penetrated many echelons in Taiwanese society and the military.
The fact that my family is hardcore KMT doesn’t help. If I tried to start a weapon company in Taiwan they would question my allegiance already.
I could make knives but it wouldn’t necessarily be weapons, it would be more like tools.
Seems strange, I agree. but a possibility is to legally steal tech for in house mass production. that seems exactly on point for Taiwan. the only hitch in that plan would be pissing off the only olive branch (albiet malformed, bug infested and broken) from a country that matters in terms of “helping” with the fight against the newest nazi threat, across the straight.
Hehe…given how much you talk about supporting china, why do you think this might be? Seems interesting 