Manufacturers aren't adding new capacity because if they are stuck selling at current wholesale prices, then the expense of setting up a new factory in uncertain times would be a risk.
If manufacturers were able to raise their prices to a point that would support new investment in manufacturing without having to amortize it over a very long payback time, then we'd see the shortages alleviate. But right now, those potential profits are going to the scalpers in order to fund more scalping, instead of going to the manufacturers and funding more manufacturing.
Artificial price controls create shortages; that is a fundamental principle of economics. That is no less true when the price controls are voluntary. However, Americans have developed a sense over the last 30 years or so that they'd rather have controlled prices and shortages rather than high-enough-to-meet-demand prices and abundance, and so the markets distort themselves accordingly. So manufacturing doesn't increase much, scalping becomes hugely profitable, and store shelves start to look like a Soviet grocery.
Personally, I'd rather see $5-10/box ammo on the shelf than empty shelves marked at $3/box, but that's just me...
Yep Pretty much. You did forget about to mention that the O.P. is totally ignoring that the free market, without government intervention, has corrected the shortage of black rifles, high capacity magazines and centerfire ammunition and the high prices have dropped and are dropping to pre-banic levels.
Rifles (and to a lesser extent, magazines) aren't consumables in the same way that ammo is; even magazines can take years to wear out. If manufacturing isn't increasing to match the new shooters with new guns now trying to buy ammo, and can't keep up with the former coupla-boxes-on-hand types that are now looking to keep more on hand, then I don't think the ammo supply for high-demand calibers is going to catch up for a long time. It is certainly going to take a lot longer than if more production had been incentivized early on, and in the long run prices are going to stabilize at an equilibrium point higher than they otherwise would have, methinks.
And remember, price controls distort supply and demand
even when they are implemented voluntarily across an industry, rather than by government fiat. An undistorted market would have corrected the shortages a lot quicker, albeit at the cost of higher prices in the short run. Americans would rather have shortages, though, so shortages we have.