The irony of life continues to mystify me. We slip our human mortality under our couches until a serious and real threat to kill us comes along that shakes our souls from their very center.

When I was in junior high school and the principal announced that President John F. Kennedy had been killed, I didn’t feel anything immediately. Then, when I saw my teacher cry out and cover her face, I was scared. As I observed more and more adults crying, I thought my family and I and the world we lived in were going to end in one big bang of a moment.

After a solid week of voluntary quarantining, kids came outside to play again, our parents resumed their normal lives, and all of us were moving forward in the land of American dreams.

On the evening the twin towers and the Pentagon fell to terrorist attacks, I took a walk to contemplate the thousands of American lives that were lost and what might happen next while our country was on high alert. Coming up behind me was a young girl walking her dog.

“Mister!” I heard her shout. I turned around. We stared at each other for a moment.

“Is the world going to end today?” She asked, with a look of incredible fear on her face that I can still see in my mind today. I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out. I could not think of a single thing to say. We stood there looking at each other for what seemed like forever. Finally, I forced a smile and said, “Don’t worry. We will all get through this. Bad things happen, but good things always come back.”

As we all know, in the aftermath of 9/11, Americans seemed nicer and kinder to each other. Perhaps it’s because sudden death scared us into sudden life. Don’t take the next breath for granted. Live now. The old cliché that “no one is promised tomorrow” was looking at us in the mirror the first thing in the morning.

When this pandemic began, many were hoarding groceries and supplies, thinking only of themselves. This invisible and unknown disease is something more frightening than assassinations or terrorists’ attacks on isolated targets. This time, all Americans are a cough, a fever, or a handshake away from a ventilator tube.

Universal panic brings desperate reaction. CNN reported that gun sellers across the United States are reporting major spikes in firearm and bullet purchases as the coronavirus spreads across the country. Long lines have been observed outside gun stores in California and Oklahoma.

The ammunition website Ammo.com said it has recorded an unprecedented surge in bullet sales over the past three weeks. Administrators for the site, which ships ammunition to all but four states across the nation, released sales figures late Monday night showing a 77% increase in website visits between Feb. 23 and March 15. Those visits led to a 222% increase in transactions over the same period when compared to the first three weeks in February.

Revenue has increased 309%, according to the site, which said coronavirus fears are fueling the sales surge.

“The world has never seen anything like this and people want to make sure they’re prepared for whatever lies ahead, whether that be food shortages, government shutdown, or worse,” a representative for Ammo.com said in an emailed statement. “When everything around you is uncertain, having a supply of ammunition can make our customers feel safer.”

We can’t shoot and kill the virus, but we can certainly shoot and kill each other. Many worry they will have to protect their families and homes if economic decline continues and crime rates rise making humans more of a threat to harm us than the virus will do.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous words in his 1933 presidential inaugural speech ring true today. “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

There are plenty of sensible gun owners, but I have often wondered if we are a nation populated with too many angry people without a conscience and that this pandemic is another trigger that they can pull to shoot the loaded gun. We see anger every day with road rage on our highways. We see street violence every night on the TV news.

Recently, 15 boys beat a teenage girl into unconsciousness in New York. They left her on the sidewalk bleeding, but before they ran away, they stole the sneakers off her feet. When anger turns into this senseless violence, we have failed as moral humans and have lost our way to feel compassion for each other.

As soon as the spread of this virus can be stopped, the better it will for our protection from the threat of pandemic-related violence.

I think back on that day when I tried to answer the young girl’s question. If a frightened child should come to me today and ask, “Mister. Is the world going to end?” I’d know what to say.

“Don’t worry. We will all get through this. Bad things happen, but good things always come back.”

Rich Strack can be reached at katehep11@gmail.com.