As the number of people who have contracted the coronavirus continues to rise, the United States has had to face a brutal, albeit unsurprising, truth about this microscopic enemy: it can’t be shot.

“Sure, you could shoot everyone who tested positive,” says Alabama Governor Mike Hunt, “But as we know that many who have been infected with the COVID-19 virus are contagious before they present symptoms, if we just start firing away, all we’d have would be an abnormally high fatality rate and a lot of sick people. And we aren’t running a school here folks.”

That covid, hard reality comes as a blow in this country, where many believe that the answer to everything from home security, to “what makes a nice paperweight?” is a gun.

“We’ve shot at hurricanes. We’ve shot at tornadoes. We’ve shot at people who said they don’t think we should shoot at things,” said a man driving a converted gun turret down a Florida street.

“Hell. We’ve shot at the very essence that life is fleeting and we are intangible nothings that wrap ourselves in the fabricated security of a national identity to assuage the pain of living in the penumbra of eternal extinction. And now you’re going to tell me that the greatest threat to the Youuuu-Essssss-of-Ehhhhh in years, can’t be ‘lit up’ (as we like to say in gun safety class)? The hell it can’t.”

Researchers everywhere confirmed it definitely can’t.

“Shot?” Shouted a leading expert in the fledgling pandemic, after being cornered after a press conference, and asked to address the efficacy of the preferred American method for making a bad situation worse.

“Shot!?! You pulled me aside in the middle of a global health crisis to ask me if the coronavirus can be shot? What the fuck is wrong with you? No. No! Jesus fucking Christ. Questions like that make me think that instead of asking why this virus is happening now, perhaps we should be asking what took it so long?”

That the 120 firearms-per-American that the average citizen of the United States keeps under their pillow are utterly useless in this, an actual emergency, is an awkward reality that contrasts harshly with the fact that what is needed most right now is a robust, well-funded, universal healthcare system. Something no American has. Not mounted over their fireplace. Not slung over their shoulder. And not hidden in their glove box. A sad reality, for a nation so keen to be great. Again.

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