I hate to say this about the NRA (of which I have been a member, and probably will be again), but Wayne La Pierre and his ilk have turned it into a de facto wing of the Republican party (of which I have also been a supporter of in the past, and maybe some day will be able to again), and a shameless tool of the firearms industry.
Their blanket endorsment of the Republican party over the past eight years has been pretty shameless, and so has their continous fear-mongering on behalf of the industry. When do gun and ammo sales go through the roof? When the NRA starts beating the "gun ban/ammo ban" drum. This entire shortage is largely due to the fears whipped up by this very organization.
Their magazine, "First Freedom", has only two types of articles. , First, it's "Ugly Democrats are going to take your guns" (the recent one with Hillary Clinton on the cover was even making thinly veiled allusions to the old "UN/New World Order/illuminati" conspiracy theory), and the second is a shameless promotion of one of their major advertisers. It seems that, according to the NRA, there isn't a bad thing to say about any of their advertisers.
I'm not surprised that there's a run on ammo. I also wouldn't be surprised to find out that this "shortage" is largely manufactured by the industry and the NRA. I don't think that there's any less ammo being produced lately, in fact, there's probably more being manufactured now than ever before, but what is certain is that many people are hoarding. That, in and of itself, will create the illusion of a shortage and cause people to hoard more.
My other problem with the NRA is that they make the 2nd Ammendment a Republican/conservative vs. Democrat/liberal issue. I now many otherwise liberal people who are gun owners. The NRA would like you to never speak to them again. The NRA doesn't want you to join the DNC and try to dilute their anti-gun slant and make it less of campaign issue. No, LaPierre and his friends are really just shills for the GOP, and they want you to support the Republican party on the basis of this one issue. They want you to ignore the absolute mess that they have left this country in on every other front. Health care, Wall st. deregulation, the war, immigration, No-bid contracts, energy policy, seperation of church and state, reproductive rights, the deficit, it doesn't matter what you think of those. Vote with the red states. Because otherwise, Hillary is going to send jack-booted thugs from the UN to take your pistols. The NRA is, at it's very core, an organization that strives to be devisive. This is a counterproductive stratgy.
If you want to protect your right to keep and bear arms, bring your democrat friends to the range and let them shoot a few targets. Make gun nuts out of them, and they'll be on your side on that issue at least.