"We should get a gun," my husband said when the COVID-19 lockdown first began in California three weeks ago.

A former U.S. Army officer, he knows how to use a firearm responsibly and competently. 

I, on the other hand, am … how shall I put it? Not a gun person. When I was pregnant with our first child 21 years ago, I insisted there would be no guns in our house. 

But these are unprecedented times. It's not so hard to imagine a bleak future where the prisons are emptied, the police are decimated by the virus and we're all on our own to defend our homes/ castles against marauding thugs intent on stealing our … toilet paper? Lysol wipes? Cans of baked beans? Who knows? The world suddenly seems a lot scarier.

Indeed, fear is a central animating force in recent lawsuits filed by the National Rifle Association and other pro-gun groups against officials in New York and California, demanding that firearms retailers be designated as essential businesses and allowed to remain open during the pandemic.

"The current public health emergency does not justify impeding the exercise of Second Amendment rights, especially during a time when many New Yorkers have valid concerns about the ability of the government to maintain order—and criminals are being prematurely released from jails," states the NRA's complaint against New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and other officials, which was filed on April 2 by William A. Brewer III of Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors in the Northern District of New York. 

"Many New York citizens and residents desiring to purchase firearms and ammunition have experienced empty shelves, long lines and tense atmospheres while shopping for other essential goods," Brewer continues. "They have read about the release of thousands of prisoners by state officials, and they are concerned about the ability of police forces to maintain order when officers fear contact with COVID-19 or have fallen ill themselves."

The California complaint, which was filed on March 27 by George Lee of Seiler Epstein in the Central District of California on behalf of the NRA as well as individual plaintiffs, retailers and other gun groups, strikes a similar chord.

"[T]he need for enhanced safety during uncertain times is precisely when plaintiffs and their members must be able to exercise their fundamental rights to keep and bear arms," Lee writes. "[F]irearms and ammunition retailers arguably provide the most essential business function possible by enabling Californians to lawfully defend themselves, their loved ones and their property."

It all sounds very apocalyptic, but here's a funny thing: Even in New York, where things are the worst, crime is actually down. According to the New York Police Department, in the last two weeks of March, there was a 25% decrease in the number of murders; a 10% decrease in robberies; and a 37% decrease in grand larcenies compared to the same period in 2019.

The Hill reported that crime is also down in Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta and Denver.

I'm not suggesting there could never be a situation where law and order failed and someone needed a gun for self-defense. But if a bunch of people go out and panic-buy guns—especially people with no training or experience in how to use them? And then they bring them home, where they're cooped up with their families, not to mention stressed out, worried about money, socially isolated and possibly depressed—and when domestic violence reports are on the rise? 

I'm pretty sure that adding a gun into the mix is not a good idea.

Besides, this isn't the time to go out shopping—for guns or anything else. This is the time to stay home. 

Nonetheless, on March 28, the Department of Homeland Security released non-binding guidance on what state and local governments should consider to be "critical infrastructure workforce." DHS included "Workers supporting the operation of firearm or ammunition product manufacturers, retailers, importers, distributors, and shooting ranges" on the list.

After the DHS guidance was issued, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, a defendant in the California lawsuit, backed down. While he previously said that "gun and ammunition stores are not considered essential businesses and must close to the general public," he reversed course on March 30 said stores that fall under his jurisdiction can stay open—which he says makes the case against him moot.

Likewise, lawyers representing Governor Newsom said his March 20 shelter in place order "does not mandate the closure of firearms and ammunition retailers. To the extent any local official acting on his or her own authority requires the closure of those retailers, such actions do not concern the Executive Order."

That leaves lawyers representing Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to defend shuttering the city's gun stores.  

They begin by stressing that nothing in the mayor's "Safer at Home" order prohibits anyone from lawfully possessing firearms. 

"The mayor's order instead deems commerce in innumerable kinds of goods and services, including commerce in firearms, to be a non-essential activity during the COVID-19 pandemic," wrote deputy city attorney Jonathan H. Eisenman. "At bottom, plaintiffs are asking this court hurriedly to second-guess the mayor's considered effort to address a public health emergency through a temporary measure that treats all non-essential commerce equally, neither specifically targeting guns nor prohibiting gun ownership or possession." 

The order, Eisenman continued, "closes all non-essential businesses in the city, a sweep that includes thousands more businesses than the 18 stores within city limits that sell guns or ammunition or both. It is a broad commercial regulation made for the benefit of public health; it is not a firearms regulation."

In other words, the Second Amendment doesn't cover the right to go shopping during a pandemic.

In New York, Attorney General Letitia James also vowed to fight. "Everyone, including the NRA, must follow the law and all executive orders of New York," she tweeted. "We will aggressively defend the state against yet another legal assault by the NRA."