I'm not saying there will not be shortages caused by uneven distribution.
I am saying that there are enough small arms rounds in the US military inventory to deal with a "zombie outbreak" or lots of other contingencies. There are significant stockpiles of small arms rounds, and other munitions.
The following link has a lot of information. Short synopsis, the pre 9/11 annual requirement for 5.56 rounds was 682 million rounds. That was increased to 1.35 billion rounds. The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant is capable at full production rate of making 1.2 billion rounds a year.
http://www.alu.army.mil/alog/issues/...arms_ammo.html
The lack of ammunition during the surge was for a specific type of "New" round for the 5.56.
The above does not even begin to account for the rounds held by private individuals, police departments, and retailers/wholesalers (Walmart, Cabelas, Bass Pro-Shop...) or for ammunition either made by civilian companies or imported.Shortages of civilian ammo has largely been caused by politically fueled fears. Again, that is VERY likely to occur during a real panic, so I'm not saying that their will not be shortages. .22 Long Rifle ammunition has become both expensive and hard to get, but it's being produced at higher then normal levels. US commercial plants are capable of manufacturing up to 4.2 billion rounds of .22 LR each year, and they are now.