Since the very early days of the pandemic, people have bought a lot of guns. There are now millions of new gun owners in this country, many more than there were before, all because people recognized that armed citizens can defend themselves while unarmed citizens can’t. It’s just that simple.

After months of lockdown, followed by riots and other civil unrest, a lot of people feel pretty justified by their decision to buy a firearm. I also suspect those who virtue-signaled by destroying their firearms might have felt a bit stupid, but that’s neither here nor there.

However, for some, the surge in gun sales is really just an excuse to spend money to justify gun control.

Shortages of toilet paper at neighborhood grocery stores have become a symbol of the nation’s response to the COVID-19 virus, but recent reports suggest that people also reacted to the pandemic by purchasing firearms and ammunition in massive numbers. Year over year, estimates of gun sales increased 85% in March, the highest level ever recorded in the United States, followed in April by a 71% increase. 

Eventually, the pandemic will recede, scientific rigor will lead to treatments or a vaccine, and life will start to return to a new normal — but those new firearms aren’t going anywhere.

What does this mean for public safety? And what can policymakers do to ensure that a spike in sales doesn’t result in more injuries or deaths?

What follows is an attempt to justify using studies to advocate for more control, even going so far as to misrepresent facts in order to score a political point.

Check this out:

The debate over gun safety and gun rights often feels intractable, but this is one of the few common areas of agreement. Groups ranging from the National Rifle Association to Moms Demand Action all advocate for safe storage.

The problem is, they really don’t. The NRA advocates for people storing guns when not in use, sure, but Moms Demand Action advocate for laws that require weapons to be locked away. Mandatory storage laws, unlike the NRA’s position, don’t allow anyone to make adjustments based on their own circumstances. They’re require to lock them up and who cares what happens after that.

Which is why the NRA actually opposes laws like this.

Yet the authors tried to present it as if the NRA and Moms Demand Action are literally on the same page on the issue and that the only roadblock were politicians who just didn’t get it.

That’s a lie.

We also don’t allow studies to dictate what we have so far as rights, anyway. If a study found that a growing number of people had coronary disease as a result of comments read on the internet, would these people advocate for infringing on the free speech of ordinary Americans? Yet that’s what they do with our gun rights on a routine basis.

So no, I’m not going to agree with more studies. If private parties want to fund them, go right ahead. I’ve seen enough already to know that anything that inhibits my ability to protect my family is something I will vehemently oppose to my dying breath. I don’t need studies to tell me about that.