California isn’t a gun-friendly state. We all know this. The state has done everything it could to discourage gun ownership and to demonize those who buy firearms anyway. It’s probably best described as hostile territory for anyone who believes in the plain text of the Second Amendment.

Of course, not all of California is anti-gun. There are large swaths of the state filled with red-blooded Americans who really do support the right to keep and bear arms. They’re just drowned out by places like Southern California with their high density of anti-gun voters.

Yet with the coronavirus spreading and hitting California worst than most, fears of the disease and what it might bring about have a lot of people worried. How worried? Buying guns worried.

Gun sales at some Southern California stores are surging in response to fears about the coronavirus.

“Normally, we’re a pretty busy store,” said Dennis Lin, owner of Gun Effects and Cloud Nine Fishing in Industry. “But this made it really, really crazy.”

Lin said his sales are close to double what they would be typically right now.

“Our staff is not accustomed to this kind of rush,” said Lin, who thinks fears concerning the coronavirus are overblown. “I think people need to gather themselves a little bit and take a step back.”

Many customers at Lin’s store are Asian. And Lin said some of them are buying guns out of fear of being racially targeted because of the origin of the coronavirus.

Honestly, faulting Asians simply because they’re Asian is beyond stupid. However, I note that in a state where gun control advocates have apparently done a very good job of telling people they don’t need a gun, what do these folks do when they feel threatened?

They buy a gun.

How many of these folks supported various gun control laws believing they don’t need a gun until the moment they felt threatened?

I don’t think anyone is going to blame folks for the disease just because they’re Asian. That strikes me as one of those things you hear about a friend’s friend who knew someone who was attacked for whatever reason, but you can never quite pin it down to a person. Or we’ll find any actual attacks are a hoax just like most of the supposed violence from Trump supporters.

But, then again, I’m an optimist about this disease. I don’t think it’ll be as bad as many claim–though I also think it’s prudent to take sensible precautions just in case I’m wrong–and I’m not about to start worrying until all the Waffle Houses shut down. However, I’m also not a medical expert and might be horribly mistaken on both counts.

I also know of many who are stocking up on ammunition and a few buying their first guns outside of California based on their own coronavirus fears. These aren’t people thinking they’ll be blamed, but fearful that a lack of civil services may well cause civil unrest. For them, this is part of those “sensible precautions” I mentioned and I’m not about to disagree with them.

As for the California gun buyers, I welcome these new gun owners to our ranks. I hope they soon learn that for their handgun needs, there are a plethora of options available to the rest of the nation that they didn’t get to partake of because of the state’s draconian gun control laws. I hope they understand that the odd nature of their AR-15-ish rifles are also because of those laws and the rest of us don’t have to deal with them either.

Maybe they can start pushing for gun rights in the state and change the attitude toward guns in California. Lord know, something needs to.