I believe differently. I think you would be 1 of those people selling water for $20 a bottle when a hurricane hit. Not being a charity you would want to maximize your profit while the guy next to me in line offers $20 for what you paid $1 for.
Look I'm not sure I quite buy that there's a legitimate "gouging" ethical conflict when life necessities are involved. There could be a whole lot said about whether it is ethical -- or moral -- to raise prices on food and water when people really need food and water.
However, we are NOT talking about life necessities here! So that thorny question is completely irrelevant.
This is a LUXURY item. Just like a Rolex or a big bottle of Moët & Chandon, or a 60" HDTV, or an extra dollop of whipped cream on your sundae, or a new Corvette, or a Grande double-extra-soy-latte. You aren't owed those things. You have no inherent right to them. If you can't afford to purchase one, that's YOUR tough luck. If there are only 2 in the store and the guy next to you will pay $1 more than you will -- you lose. No fault in it, no harm. You've decided that your money is more valuable to you than that item. Someone who makes a thing, or who owns a thing, is utterly and completely within his/her rights (and acting perfectly ethically) in asking whatever amount of compensation s/he desires to give up that item. If two (or two thousand!) people want the item you have, you find out who will give you the most compensation for that item and they get it.
Add competing similar products and producers into the system and you have a market.
There may be
pragmatic reasons why you don't ask whatever is the top of the market for your goods, but they all depend in the end on how they affect your ability to make the most PROFIT for the goods you sell.
But again, this is a luxury item. No person is about to DIE because they can't afford an AR-15 rifle this month. When you conflate "want one" with "need one" you fall into the trap of confusing following the market with being unethical and "greedy." No one is being coerced. No one is having their money pulled out of their pockets. The folks who are making fairly common rifles cost $3,000 right now are WILLING customers who have decided on their own to give up their cash (or credit!) for that item at that price.
People who have $1,800 or $2,200 or $4,000 or whatever sitting in their pocket are walking out of gun shops as satisfied customers with their new rifles. The sales go on. The market works. Maybe that means YOU aren't able to tap into that market right now. (I certainly can't!) But that's no fault of the makers, distributors, and retailers.
That's the "fault" of the guy in line next to you. And even hating HIM for being able to afford a rifle you can't afford is silly. Let alone hating the maker who is willing to sell it to him for that higher than usual price.