Example: My mother-in-law is not a shooter, but she is a firearm owner. She owns a .38spcl to keep on her nightstand and a .22lr revolver, that's it. She shoots about every month to every other month, half a box (20-25rnds) at a time.

In this climate, my mother-in-law has noticed the empty shelves and noticed the high traffic at the shops, and heard all of the whispers and rumors... My mother-in-law, who shoots about 3 boxes of ammo a year normally, has suddenly started stockpiling ammunition. She has various loads of .38spcl totalling up to just under 1,000rnds right now, and has about 12-15,000rnds of .22lr, and buys every box she can find. She called me earlier this week asking if she should buy reloading equipment because one of her friend's son's (a true blue mall ninja) said all gun owners should be able to load their own in case "they" take away our ammo. All that on a limited income...

The demand is huge, and unfortunately it's driven by nothing but speculative rumors. Companies are making ammo as fast as they can, focused on the highest demand items right now. I noticed last month that it started to slow down a bit, for a few weeks ammo and components were starting to show up on shelves again, but then once it became available, the surge picked up again and it's all gone again. In high population areas where people have no common sense and show it in their law making, the ammo supply will take longer to come back. In areas with less people and more reasonable lawmaking, you'll start seeing availability again soon enough.

Personally, I'm not certain that the US Gov't, cutting it's defense budget as it is, could hide a significantly sizeable ammunition purchase to outweigh the civilian demand right now. Millions of US firearms owners are slamming ammo demand right now, way heavier than the military could ever compete with.