"Temporary price caps are at times used to control it and ensure everybody has access to needed items."
Price caps lead to shortages (or exacerbate shortages) and encourage the formation of a black market. Higher prices lower demand and give an incentive to push more goods to market. This isn't stuff I'm making up based on my opinions or something I saw on television. It's all been done before and there are any number of examples you can read about if you care to study it.
Regarding ammo and firearms prices and the earlier references to price gouging, I'll give a couple examples. In early 2009 I was picking up a pistol at a gun shop. While I waited, I asked about the price on a Bushmaster AR on the rack that looked like a very basic M4 clone. The guy wanted $1600. I wasn't willing to pay $1600 for a base model Bushmaster so I passed. It wasn't worth it to me at that price. A few days later I was in another gun shop and saw a comparable AR from Rock River. The price was significantly lower than the rifles at the other shop and I was willing to buy one at their price. The guy at the shop selling $1600 Bushmasters, no doubt, continued to lose sales to his competitor until he lowered his prices. I am sure he didn't have much luck "price gouging."
Another example that must have played itself out countless times involved ammo. During the same period, when there was a significant shortage of available ammo, customers would come into a gun shop where my friend worked. When they found out the price for ammo sold there, some of the customers would become angry and say "I always buy at Walmart and it is a lot cheaper there. You're price gouging!" And the shop owner's reply was "How much ammo do they have at Walmart?" The answer, of course, was none. Ammo was made available to those customers because there were vendors who sold at higher prices than Walmart.
My apologies for such a long, boring post.