I beg to differ.
If ammo makers didn't hold back production, the nation wouldn't be out of ammo.
Every single handgun round is sold out and has been sold out for almost a year. I seriously doubt "7 million new shooters" all bought every single box of ammo for every single type of gun. I can see a 9mm or 380 shortage as those are the mass majority of calibers new gun buyers would of purchased but 22lr there is no excuse for a shortage of.
Makers have been cranking that round out by the millions per month for the better part of 100 years. There's no reason to be out of 22lr in the United States unless the ammo makers all decided together to purposely cut production of it.
And given that numerous companies have come out in the latter half of 2020 and the start of 2021 admitting they purposely cut inventory of certain products in certain areas to prevent public access during " a summer of tensions "...I have no doubt ammo makers will eventually admit they were part of it too.
Wrong.
This is just another panic cycle. Every so often the "Chicken Littles" among our community who failed to prepare ahead of time freak out when something happens (election, mass shooting ... etc) and start clearing out the shelves. Then people start seeing stores that are empty in certain calibers, and they panic and start buying armloads of other calibers. Before long, this behavior gathers momentum like a boulder rolling down a mountainside and we end up where we are now.
This behavior has only increased with the internet immersing us in tales from all over about empty shelves, so we in turn buy out everything local to us.
Then you get the serious panic buyers who max out credit cards buying multiple cases of damn near everything because they believe the **** they're reading on the internet about "This is it! There isn't going to be anymore available again!"
Combine that with the opportunists who swoop in to stores every day at opening to buy up everything in sight so they can resell it online or at shows to the gullible people who believe they have to have it at any price.
You get what is happening now. Again. Like it will again at some point after this scene passes and we return to normal pricing/availability.
The sad part is that most people will learn nothing from this once again, and we'll be fated to repeat this over and over again.
Meanwhile, those of us that have been through more than a couple of these cycles have learned to keep a stockpile so these periods of panic don't affect us. At all.
Hell, I might even unload some of my pile at these crazy prices. Collect my unexpected profits (I didn't buy it to sell) from lead and turn it into gold/silver. Then when the panic buyers run out of money/credit/storage & the ammo situation returns to sane levels, I'll simply rebuy what I sold.
If you're smart, you'll grab a seat and wait it out. Then just be prepared for next time.
