Quickly, everyone, let us buy 17 firearms and ask no further questions. Just let that invisible enemy try to come anywhere near me, and whatever happened to the loser at the battle of Austerlitz will happen to it. It only thinks it is invisible; I am armed with my Second Amendment rights in one hand and my total ignorance of medical science in the other.

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What could be more necessary than a gun? It is not just in this war against this invisible enemy that they are vital. What supply on the home front could be more essential at this time?

Consider first: Guns contain so much fiber, I think! And then, of course, they are so useful for sanitizing surfaces. Fire one repeatedly at a countertop and it will free it of virus! There is nothing a virus fears or understands better than a firearm.

If your sourdough is not starting fast enough, it is good to have a sourdough starter pistol handy.

It is so much fun watching guns nest and play along the branches of a tree just outside your window. Or plant one in a pot and you can enjoy, each day, coming back to see whether it has sprouted yet. Maybe it will be an avocado! This will help to feed your family.

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If you have a good old-fashioned 10-shooter to protect yourself, who needs a mask? Someone who understands the process by which a virus is transmitted? No, I was trying to be rhetorical.

Stock up on guns in case you run out of toilet paper; maybe you can frighten your toilet into sprouting a bidet. Make it pitch in to the effort! Do not forget: We are at war. We have an invisible enemy to fight, and we need all the weapons we can muster to bolster the heroes of this war effort.

Sorry that we are not the kind of society that views caring for others as a valuable and high calling, worthy of being applauded at ballparks, which is why we now are tangled in this impenetrable metaphor where doctors are a kind of soldier and people simply doing ill-compensated service jobs to feed their families are on the front lines. The language shop, as I said, is closed. But you can buy a gun.

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I suppose it is just barely possible that you might be purchasing a gun out of a costly and elaborate delusion that if your house is bristling with weaponry, this will stave off chaos, somehow, rather than stoking it. Maybe purchasing a firearm is, in fact, not essential, and the only thing you can be certain that having a gun in the house will do is increase the risk that the people in the house will die from gun violence.

But do not let such a thought tempt you to falter! Logic is too costly a risk. This is a war!

Read a letter responding to this opinion column: Many people are buying guns out of genuine concern during the pandemic