I don't disagree that fear is driving the demand, but one man's greed is another man's capitalism. It seems pretty left wing to me to demonize a man for making money off the market. Unless you are feeding your family (and most if not all here are not) ammo is not a "necessity" for survival, and I, for one would not want local, state, or federal government intervening in the market. I get that legally owning guns and ammo is a right and is central to our way of life, but we should be careful what we wish for as far as gouging lest big brother decides to "help "us regulate prices in times of market disruption. If you don't like the "gouger" or "scalper" prices, don't pay them and contribute to continuing shortages. Eventually, supply and demand will again become balanced and prices will stabilize. Will, it go back to pre-panic prices? I doubt it, but you should prepare yourself for inflation on food, energy, and about every other product and service out there.given the current state of politics here. You can't keep printing money and expect it to buy the same basket of goods. And until our economy is back on track, real wages will not keep up.
As to the conspiracy theorists who believe the government is preventing the manufacture of 7-08, 30-30, and 25-06, I have a different view. Ammunition manufacturers are capitalists too. If they can sell every 223, 308, 9 40, and 45 round they make and the pent up demand is larger there, that is what they will make. They don't have different plants for every caliber, the mix is based on what maximizes profitability. Some bean counter such as myself has neat little formula that dictates what that is.
Do government contracts limit commercial productions? Sure they do. The purchasers of 50 million rounds at a time and government contract provisions get preference even over the larger commercial purchasers. However, for damn sure the government ain't buying anything but the typical military calibers. The manufacturers are allocating their limited production capacity to the most in demand cartridges, which anecdotally are likely 223 and 9, Running that equipment 24/7 involves OT, maintenance on the fly, and other increased costs. That manufacturer is not going to eat that cost. It will be passed on to the wholesaler, retailer, and customer. The retailer has less to sell in these times and is looking to make his monthly nut (salaries, rent, utilities, taxes, etc) and is trying to make it up somewhere. If they can't get as many guns or as much ammo to sell, how can they survive without raising prices? The alternative is that most LGS will go out of business. Again, I, for one, don't want my only choices to be BPS/Cabela's or Academy.
Is it unfortunate that some people have to pay really high prices? Of course it is and I have some empathy for them. However, there are still supplies out there at reasonable prices. In the last 6 months. I have bought dies, brass, powder and bullets for 2 new calibers (35 Rem and 45-70) from both commercial and private sources without paying "gouger" prices. Today, I bought 5 boxes of bullets from 3 different retailers at "normal" prices today and bought a pound of Shooters World powder and another box of bullets earlier in the week from yet another retailers. I didn't camp out or wait in line, I just added LGS stops to other errands. I bought what I wanted sometimes taking the last box and sometimes leaving boxes on the shelf. They will be used and it is not my responsibility to compensate for someone else's lack of foresight nor is it theirs to compensate for mine. Do I get my first choice like Varget? Nope, I make do with what I can and substitute as necessary. I have had fun developing new loads in several calibers out of necessity.
The only thing I haven't been able to buy has been primers. Fortunately,I planned ahead and have a decent supply, but if this goes much over two years, I will be in trouble there as well. The manufactures are not going to sell primers and components at a lower margin when they can make loaded ammunition to sell at higher margins. They owe us nothing and have a fiduciary duty to maximize the return of their shareholders.
You can piss and moan all you want about "boycotting": these SOBs when things return to normal, but it floors me that everyone all of a sudden is anti-capitalist when it affects their pocketbook. The reality is governmental regulation, litigation, and poor business practices have decreased the number of ammunition and component makers to just a few and you are unlikely to be able to boycott all of them or even some of them. As for the gouging sellers, they are likely the only ones who will make it through so likely you will have to deal with them also. I understand the frustration, but free market conservatives/ 2A supporters generally don't begrudge those making a legal profit. Suck it up and pay the prices. do the work to find supplies at more reasonable prices, or sit it out until prices normalize. We all have the same choices.
Flame away.
Regards,
Kris
