Hey, you dumb rubes, turn on CNN! Educate yourselves a little! Don’t you know you can’t shoot the virus?! Why don’t you go get in line at a grocery store and buy some toilet paper?

Packing heat is not a helpful response to the crisis caused by COVID-19. It won’t be necessary to be armed to defend homes stocked with groceries and toilet paper. Things may be rough for a while, and inconvenient, but society will not collapse.

The panic rush to buy guns and ammo is not a helpful response to this crisis and increases the danger for all of us. Gun shop owners say much of the rush is attributable to a panic-buying mentality. There’s also been a spike in concealed-carry permit applications. Demand for guns and ammunition is emptying the shelves at many shops.

Apocalypse now. This dystopian view of the world may tell us that too many people watch too much television. Guns cannot stop COVID-19. The virus is the enemy.