Judging by your essay, they prefer feeling cheated to having a shortage -- it's other people's shortage they don't care much about. They buy the price-"gouged" products, then they support arresting the guy who sold them. They are free to go home empty-handed with their confused ethics intact.
This is a failure of political economics (not market failure). They didn't see the market choice. They thought the choice was political: don't buy, or get the police to make the guy lower his prices. They walk away with nothing.
I don't think that anyone is disagreeing with what you're saying, but you can either go along with the (illogical) positions and choices people have, or try to challenge them. If you try to challenge them you run the risk of backlash.
This is a failure of political economics (not market failure). They didn't see the market choice. They thought the choice was political: don't buy, or get the police to make the guy lower his prices. They walk away with nothing.