Let Capitalism Rule

Due to recent natural disasters our nation is currently in a state of economic turmoil. Many of these problems are directly related to our gas supply. With most of the gas in Georgia coming from the Houston pipeline, which was hit very hard by hurricane Ike, gas has become increasingly hard to find. Oil production was halted when the hurricane hit, causing the gas supply to temporarily be cut off. This temporary stop in production has caused a gas shortage for Georgians. With legislation currently in place that prevents gas station owners from raising the price or gouging, gas is one of the few products with a government issued price ceiling. Is this fair? As much as I may regret this statement from my peers, I firmly believe that it is not fair to the gas station owners.
Living is a capitalistic society is one of the things that makes America so great. People from around the world have flocked the our great land for centuries to take advantage of this. Starting a business and getting rich is the American dream, and capitalism is key to this type of success. Capitalism is defined by dictionary.com as an economic system based on a free market, open competition, profit motive and private ownership of the means of production Why should our government step in to control prices on gas? The law of supply and demand, according to netmba.com states that if there are fewer units of products to be sold, and the demand is still high enough, the price will rise. Gas station owners should be able to take advantage of this.
Take a trip to any gas station locally and you will see one of two things. You will either see a vacant parking lot with trash bags over the pumps, or you will see tons of people clamoring over one another to get what little gas is remaining. Men yelling at women to hurry up, old ladies flipping the bird, and everyone looking scared to death that the gas will run out before they get their tanks topped off are some of the chaotic sights I have seen at the pumps recently. If gas stations owners had free will to jack up the prices, I guarantee that less people would fell the need to top off their tank. If less people were buying it out of fear, and more people were buying it because they actually needed it, our gas crisis may be solved. The demand would eventually drop, while the stockpile had time to be replenished leaving the gas prices back where they were to start.
I am fully aware that people would be outraged. Many people would complain that it was too expensive to do anything or go anywhere that is not completely necessary, but our gas supply would finally catch back up, prices would soon fall, and then we would all be able to go back to our pre-hurricane lives.