In their quest to help Americans retain their civil rights during this period of great anxiety and fear, America’s ‘oldest civil rights organization’ has stepped up its messaging about the threat to 2^nd-Amendment ‘rights’ posed by COVID-19. First and foremost, our friends in Fairfax have sued Andy Cuomo who issued an executive order declaring that gun shops were ‘non-essential enterprises’ and therefore had to be shut down.

If nothing else, the NRA’s suit, which will quickly get tossed, is a bit of payback for the investigations and suits against the NRA which Andy has been pushing over the last couple of years. In particular, New York State has been trying to figure out whether the NRA has violated any of the state’s not-for-profit regulations since the gun organization happens to be incorporated in the Empire State. There’s also a messy little lawsuit filed by the State’s Department of Financial Services which claims that the NRA insurance program is basically a big scam (which it is.)

Behind all of these dustups is the fact that Andy has probably been the single, most aggressive public figure when it comes to screwing over the gun gang. As Bill Clinton’s Secretary of HUD, he drafted the infamous regulatory deal which Smith & Wesson signed in 2000 which almost brought the storied gun maker to its knees. He later rammed through a very tough gun law in New York State following the massacre at Sandy Hook and has just signed a tough red-flag law which goes into effect later this year. So, this guy’s no friend of Gun-nut Nation, that’s for sure. You can read the NRA’s filing right here.

Of course now that the national policy to deal with COVID-19 is being set by Rush Limbaugh, we can expect Gun-nut Nation to fall in line and continue to promote the idea that the best defense against a virus of still unknown origin is to load up the ol’ shooting iron and get ready to blast away. Thanks to the NRA, the 2nd Amendment is alive and well in at least 43 of the 50 states, with only Massachusetts, New York and New Mexicoforcing gun dealers to close down their shops, with another 4 states – Vermont, Michigan, Washington and California maybe doing the same thing. The NRA has obligingly put a map on their website so that everyone will know which states to avoid when rioting breaks out in the streets.

Interestingly, to the extent that we can use open source, internet media reports to understand anything, our friends at the Gun Violence Archive are saying that the number of gun homicides over the last several days is about half as many as the average number of such events which usually occur over that same period of time. So at least there are some populations out there who are practicing social distancing regardless of what the Trump/Limbaugh noise machine says.

Last week Trump’s son-in-law, whose entire medical training consists of managing a garden apartment complex in New Jersey, opened his yap and said that he had done a study which showed that many states were asking for more ventilators than they needed or could use.

He did a study. Like the study done by the NRA which proves that closing down gun shops is a threat to 2^nd-Amendment ‘rights.’ That’s right. The filing in New York State specifically refers to the 2008 Heller decision which gives Constitutional protection to everyone who wants to keep a handgun in their home for self-defense. But what if you don’t have a handgun, especially when the hordes start running around looking to loot your home in order to get the food they need?

Okay. So, everyone’s a little crazy right now.  Please stay safe.