There is nothing wrong with gouging. In fact, it is quite moral. Sell things for what the market will bear. If you sell it for less, folks who don't really need it will buy it just because, under the circumstances, it is a good deal. Folks who really need it, badly enough to pay the current market price, will then be denied.
It's called free enterprise. It works. When it is messed with, it doesn't.
The reason for the current shortages is that sellers have not jacked up prices sufficiently to account for the imbalance between demand and supply.
It's really just not that simple.
Ordinarily, a free market is subject to gradual shifts in demand, and supply naturally adjusts to compensate. The value of an object is therefore based fundamentally on the cost to get it to market. If high demand distorts the price too far from this baseline, competitors will even out the supply to compensate. Yes, it takes a free market to actually assign prices to a vague notion of "fundamentally based on the cost it takes to get it to market", but your notion of supply and demand being a zero-sum game is counterproductive at best, not to mention basically wrong.
Yes, in some situations, supply may rapidly dry up, and the cost will rise. But guess what happens then? If the item is truly a necessity, some other equivalent (or nearly equivalent) good will take its place.
Also, in a "free market", the government is not a major player in the market (it doesn't monopolize the supply to themselves, or even a portion of it), and it doesn't artificially distort it either with threats of regulation or bans.
That's not a free market at all.
So, first of all, even
from a purely free-marketeer perspective, you're simplifying.
But, there's more. Let's not forget we're talking about the trappings of a
right here. No, I'm not suggesting any sort of socialism for gun ownership. What I
am saying is, if you
really value the right to keep and bear arms as a
right (and the preservation thereof), then you will – for selfish reasons if nothing else – not actually
advocate a situation where those desiring to get into the exercise and practice of the right are deterred, possibly forever, by prohibitive expense.
When I hear you not just justifying, but
advocating, such an outcome, to me it smacks of elitism: all the talk about a right available to all is just that: talk.
My guess is, the big retailers who aren't gouging are looking to the future: quick profits might be had now, but at what cost? Is the cost of a thriving next generation of shooters worth it, just for a few more percent on top, or a bigger stash?
Not if you care about the
right. If all you care about if your own ability to keep your guns, and die defending them when government inevitably bans them without a thriving gun culture to oppose that, then go ahead: hoard, and gouge.
