If you are a gun owner and regularly go to the range and use a lot of ammo, I am sure you don’t need me to tell you about the outrageous price increases for ammo (approx 300% in the past 2 years), especially surplus .223 and .308 and .50BMG (my favorite). But for you who do not shoot regularly this is a very real problem.
Also, for us who reload a lot; brass, primers, power, and even bullets are increasing in cost at geometric rates! There are “shortages” of many common calibers (e.g. 50BMG primers are almost non existent).
What a gov’t can do is say “yeah, go ahead and keep your guns ... but you can’t buy any more ammo and reloading components”. Over time ammo will be as expensive as cocaine and no one will ever go and shoot what they have, if they have anything at all.
One of the big problems is the UN forcing countries to sign treaties saying they will not sell surplus military ammo to the US or any other country. E.g. South Africa did this recently and I believe Spain and Portugal did also.
They don’t have to take our guns, they just have to buy up all of the US production and/or make it illegal to purchase ammo and components.
Depressing but true. They'll ban all firearm sales to civilians as well.
That's primarily due to the unprecedented increase in the market price of metals such as copper, zinc, and tin and the alloys that are made from them. I don't believe this has anything to do with the government making ammo more expensive or reducing the number of privately owned guns. It's mostly the fault of higher demand for those metals caused by the rapidly growing industrial capacity of China, India, and other former 3rd world nations that are fast becoming manufacturing powerhouses. Copper futures, which is needed to make brass cases, primers, and copper jacketed bullets, are at an all time high and still rising. So don't expect to see any cheap ammo or brass cases anytime soon, or probably never.