Oh I thought we were debating over whether the gougers/profiteers were doing something wrong. You know unethical or unreasonable "business" practices.
Simple answer:
IF it is possible for someone to "unreasonably take advantage of" someone else by refusing to sell a product to them at a price they like (or can afford), the only way that COULD have some validity is if that person HAD to have that product. I.e: had no choice but to purchase that product, and from that vendor. Occasionally governments step in (for various reasons, few of them altruistic
) and make it illegal to withhold a product from someone who will not pay above a certain mark-up. I'm not going to say that's good or that's bad. It just sometimes is so.
Such a conversation is blatantly irrelevant when discussing buying ammunition in our current climate. We ALL have the choice of whether to buy ammo right now. It is TOTALLY voluntary. No one can coerce us to buy or die. There isn't even a legitimate argument that there is only one vendor -- while ammo is scarce, it is indeed available from multiple sources at various, albeit elevated, price points.
So stop claiming that there is some scalping, gouging, "profiteering" aspect to this. It's just a wrong-headed idea.
If you want to shoot, you can buy ammo right now, today. If you don't want to pay the "going rate" -- DON'T. Your life will go on just fine if you don't shoot tomorrow, or this month, or even this year. Like leaving off dinners out, nice cigars, and a new car, that might make your life a little bit less comfortable than you're used to, but stop claiming that that discomfort insinuates a moral crisis.
It most certainly does not!