I love how people keep bringing up ethics when a free man wants to purchase an item in a free country.
Unethical. Give me a break.
I think the word is immoral, not unethical. "Ethics" are less subjective. Morals deal more with people's personal values.
So to recap, some enterprising old guy gets up really early to patrol the counter at walmart so he can alert his crew to buy up all the ammo before anyone else can get to it. Not really unethical, but definitely immoral according to many people's values. I wouldn't do it. Most people won't do it.
I'm a proponent of free-market capitalism. I don't blame the guy for doing that. He's only taking advantage of a quirk in the market, albeit one I wouldn't do. This is that Walmart and other major retailers are selling the stuff for so far below market value that people like this will perpetuate the market conditions as long as they can. They keep the shelves bare, thus keeping the demand high, counting on large retailers to keep prices low, and then end up having the only product available that they can sell at higher prices. That is not exactly free-market capitalism.
I don't blame retailers for keeping their prices lower than market value. I kind of blame us who let our morals override the market. Walmart, Cabela's, Brownell's, Bass Pro--all the big box stores haven't really jacked up their prices on ammo all that much. I think they tend to see it as a moral issue too.
If we want to break the empty-shelf cycle, we need to give these retailers the moral permission to charge whatever the market will bear. If the old guy came in one morning and saw 22LR on the shelves for about what he plans to sell it for, he's probably going to leave it on the shelf. And as more ammo stays on the shelf, the price will eventually come back down. And when the price comes down because the market demands it, it will stay down everywhere.