When it comes to COVID-19, gun control groups probably shouldn’t have had anything to offer. After all, they claim they support law-abiding citizens exercising their right to keep and bear arms, they just want some “common sense” restrictions on those rights. Pro-gun activists have argued for years that they really want to basically take away those rights, which many gun control activists take issue with.

Pro-gun groups have been fighting, though, to keep gun stores open and to keep people able to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

Right now, there’s not a lot of push for new laws on any front. We’re all just trying to hold on.

Yet anti-gun groups are making moves that betray the fact that, for them, it’s not about keeping guns out of the hands of bad people, it’s about keeping guns out of the hands of everyone.

For example, their defense of Nikki Fried’s actions regarding carry permits in Florida.

The Florida Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence is defending Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried in the war of words that has raged for a week over her decision to restrict some concealed weapons permits processing during the coronavirus crisis.

Pro-gun groups have pilloried Fried for “infringing”on their rights for halting online gun licensing.

The Florida Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, a group cofounded by the League of Women Voters of Florida and The Campaign to Keep Guns off Campus, entered the fray Thursday.

“Commissioner Fried is placing the safety of all Floridians over the petty demands of the gun lobby by working to ensure that proper background checks are performed before granting a permit that will allow someone to carry a loaded, concealed firearm in public,” the coalition’s co-chairs Angie Gallo and Andy Pelosi stated in a news release. “The integrity of Florida’s concealed weapons licensing background check system must remain paramount to any baseless claims that permits are either not being run or delayed.”

The problem is that no one is arguing about proper background checks not being done. Quite the opposite, actually. The pro-gun groups are demanding they be carried out, actually.

The problem is the anti-gunners are defending no background checks being performed because it means people can’t get carry permits. That means people can’t exercise their right to keep and bear arms fully while complying with carry permit requirements. Sure, the couch it in the language of keeping guns out of the hands of bad people, but they’re defending actions that keep guns out of a lot more people’s hands than just any bad guys–you know, people who aren’t getting permits anyway.

And that is what it’s really about.

You see, this isn’t the first, much less a unique situation. Anti-gunners have been defending the closures of gun stores all over the country. They’ve cited COVID-19 concerns and many other things, but it’s all betrayed their real agenda.

They don’t care about the virus with these stands, they care about making it impossible for you to have a firearm. They don’t want you to be able to get a gun under any circumstances. The coronavirus is just an excuse, a pretext they’ll jump on simply because it’s handy.

At the end of the day, their sole purpose is to restrict guns down to the point that the Second Amendment is practically meaningless, and they’ll use any justification than can concoct to make that happen.