I think the mass panic is largely due to people being to paranoid. After all the rhetoric I don't see any major gun legislation happening. People are hoarding ammo out of fear. I was working at a gun shop when the Brady bill was passed. It was similar to this back then. The black helicopters are coming,our guns will be confiscated. It never happened. In my opinion this shortage of ammo is due mainly to an irrational knee jerk reaction by consumers.
I don't see any mass panic; there haven't been any "ammo riots" or gun shops burned or looted.
The various loose definitions of "paranoia", as used in an informal manner, usually include words like irrationality, delusion, and unreasonable fear.
After a person has seen and lived through a similar situation, as many of us did around 2007/2008, the term paranoia really doesn't apply.
- It's not an irrational concern that you may run out of ammo, if you depend on factory ammo and you've run out during similar situations in the past.
- If you check the usual sources for ammo twice a week for a couple of months, and don't find any 9mm ammo, you aren't delusional; there is very little ammo moving, and it rarely sits around on the shelves/websites due to quick purchases as soon as it appears.
- Once you haven't been able to buy ammo for several months, it is not an unreasonable fear that this situation could go continue for a much longer period of time.
In fact, I could make a much stronger case for folks who HAVEN'T stocked-up being irrational and delusional. They seem to irrationally believe that something that happened once could never happen again, and even if it did, it wouldn't last as long (or longer) than it did last time. They delude themselves into believing that just because a large selection of ammo has USUALLY been available at their local stores and online, that it would ALWAYS be available at one or both of these sources, despite previous shortages and the fact that NOTHING had changed since the last problem.
Finally, when a person learns from their (or other folks') previous mistakes, and takes action to prevent a recurrence from affecting their target-shooting lifestyle or a personal defense situation, this is not "hoarding"; it is prudent planning for the future. The term "hoarding" however, is useful for identifying those who were not prudent in their planning, or suffered from poor timing.
This could be much worse; what if it wasn't ammo we were talking about? How much toilet paper do you have on-hand in your house
right now? How long would it last you/your family? The same just-in-time supply system is used to produce, distribute, stock and sell TP.