A common error of human perception is to focus inwards, on one's own thoughts and actions, and then to deny, instead of looking at an overview. The overview shouts loudly that people are hoarding ammunition. Remember that there was also a run on handguns for almost a year before everyone got what they wanted. Prior to Obama's election, black rifles were proliferate. Suddenly not one was to be found.
If a vast number of people were not hoarding, and caching ammunition, we would not be having the shortages that are not nationwide in most calibers of handgun; as well as many rifle calibers and shotguns. Whether an individual on this forum is or is not hoarding, a significant percentage of shooting people are. I have spoken with individuals who have over well 100,000 rounds of various ammunition "stashed" away, over and above what they use for shooting. Perhaps those people who are actually stockpiling ammunition, even on this forum, are clever enough not to tell anyone online?
It is true that there has been a massive surge in people wanting to possess and bear arms. Nothing could be better than that for us all. But those people alone would not deplete the stores of ammunition if normal amounts were being purchased. There was a time, pre-Obama, when this was occuring and the shelves still held excesses in all calibers; as well as handloading supplies in adundance. I watched the change take place and the shelves become empty from Obama Fear.
The sudden proliferation of handloaders is not simply a huge number of people having the same idea at the same time, and desiring to become handloading hobbyists. Those numbers did not exist before Obama was elected. They have masively spiked only since that time. A reasonable assessment is that, from many admissions in shooting forums, that they are seeking a sure source of ammuntion. That can be a good thing in the long term, if people continue to hand load.
But now, so many do not even bother to purchase manuals, or refer to them online. They naively ask others in forums for load recipes. They have none of the spirit of experimentation, using the manuals. In the past, the vast majority of handloaders may have been hobbyists, such as ourselves; and perhaps needed, as some of us did, to load for financial purposes because they shot so many rounds. But that has changed in the past year. A vast number of newcomers are not of that mindset. In the past, how many of us who enjoyed handloading for multiple reasons, had at least half a dozen manuals and books of our own, written recipes? My original point was simply that a large number of new handloaders got into the hobby from a desire to "hoard" ammunition; to assure a supply in the presumed coming of the end of the world as we know it.
It is needless to debate a precise definition of the word "stashed". It could mean what one has in one's back pocket or buried in the back yard. But a huge number of people in this country now have a huge amount of ammuntion "stashed" away somewhere. That is obsessive. Obsession is one of our primary human traits anyway. Males have a common obsession about collecting; firearms, stamps, autos, etc. Not much stimuluis is required to make us obsessive.
As for me, I do not intend to tell the world how many weapons I have; nor do I intend to tell how much ammunition I possess in a public forum. Am I hoarding and clever? Or am I not hoarding and resentful? Who knows?