I believe he's mad at the folks that DON'T stockpile ammo when it's available, don't pay any attention until there's a scare, and then panic-buy, thus creating an instant shortage and massive inflation. That's what I got out of it anyway. Seems reasonable.
Ammo is technically always "available" in the sense it can be found somewhere, in some quantity, at some price.
I don't believe we have ever had a time, short of perhaps World War Two, where civilian ammunition was just generally unavailable in the United States because it wasn't being produced for sale.
I shoot about 4,000 rounds of 308 match grade per year, about half in formal structured training courses and the other half on my own in "goals based training" that I conduct myself (that is to say, I go out to the range, with specific goals/objectives in mind, and I train to meet those objectives). I buy a lot of several thousand 308 match grade, get the data, do the training, and when that lot has run out, I buy another batch from a lot, get the data, and continue training.
When it was $0.80 per round not too many years ago, that was great. When it was $1.00 per round that was fine. When it is $1.75 per round, that is annoying but I am still going to do the level of training I want to do. If it winds up being $3.00 per round I am probably still going to do the level of training I want to do.
Temporary surges in demand are not the reason for long-term categorical rises in ammunition prices/costs. Panic buying seldom applies to 308 match grade or 300 win mag [lately I have been unable to find 300 win mag FGMM 190 gr anywhere at any price, although 308 FGMM 175gr is available].
Most panic buying is going to be found in the 9mm pistol, 5.56mm NATO, 7.62x39mm, 12 gauge buckshot, and similar calibers/loads. The soccer mom who just bought her first gun [pistol] or the blue collar democrat who just bought an AR-15 because they are terrified of George Floyd "mostly peaceful protests" aren't buying 308 precision rifles and 2,000 rounds of 308 match grade. Few people are going to panic buy 300 win mag, 338 Lapua, 408 Chey Tac, 50 BMG, etc.
The simple fact is that labor costs have significantly increased due to multiple successive rounds of quantitative easing (printing money) as well as the increases in costs of raw materials.
The price increases in ammunition are not transitory short-term spikes due to sudden unexpected increases in demand, they are long-term inflationary increases as part of wider consumer price inflation due to the government's colossal expansion of the money supply.
This is largely the same reason why an acre of land that cost $3 in the 1910s, $20 in the 1930s, $100 in the 1960s, $150 in the 1980s, $250 in the 1990s, $700 in the 2000s, $1000 in the 2010s, now costs $2,000+ in the 2020s.
Look at the price of gold prior to the federal reserve act and compare the cost of an acre of land in pre-fed gold [one ounce of gold gets how many acres of Midwest farm land?] and then compare the price of an acre of midwest farm land to present day gold values. You'll find that a lot of land still goes for the same weight of gold, or close to it.
An ounce of gold still gets substantially the same quantity of goods as of 2023 that it would get it in 1913. In some instances, you get more because technology and improved assembly practices have helped keep production costs low, even in the face of rising labor costs and the costs associated with transportation of raw materials.
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