> "What situation that could conceivably arise from a pandemic requires an automatic rifle?"

Good thing that automatic rifles aren't available for sale to the civilian market[1] then, I suppose.

[1] Yes, the pedants will point out that it's theoretically possible with special licensing but it's very uncommon.

Apologies for not understanding the differences between various types of gun and misusing the term.

Still, the point remains - what situation could possibly arise from a pandemic that would require a <insert any type of gun here>?

How about this? https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-gun-sales-asian-califor.... Asians don't exactly fit the traditional stereotypes for firearms purchasers but the attacks described and similar bad behavior directed at international students from Asia on college campuses certainly show that there are people out there willing to attack them based on imagined threats and therefore some level of concern by Asians for their personal safety is merited.

I notice that it's "the media are telling them that Asians are being targeted", not "Asians are buying guns because they're suffering from racist attacks". Again, the belief that people will do bad things to each other when order breaks down is much more prevalent than the actual incidence of people doing bad things to each other when order breaks down.

I'm not saying it can't happen - there are always racist assholes out there. But the media will tell one story of a racist asshole harassing an Asian family rather than 100 stories of people being genuinely nice to each other in a crisis. Because we'll click on that one bad story and ignore the 100 nice ones.

I find your dismissiveness of the idea that racist attacks against Asians could be actually be occurring to be disappointing but not surprising in members of the modern left.

I suggest you invest some time reading a recent piece by an Chinese-American author in the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/magazine/asian-american-d...

I repeat, I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I am not "dismissing" racist attacks. I'm saying that media will massively over-report any such attacks, and under-report any incidences of people being nice to each other. So we end up with a belief (based on the evidence that we receive from the media) that we're going to be attacked, and not (which is the vast majority of actual interactions) that strangers will help us.

I don't think that's why people prep and buy guns.

> What situation that could conceivably arise from a pandemic requires a [semiautomatic] rifle?

Rioting, looting, people breaking into your home, police “sick outs.”

See what happens if the electricity goes out or all stores are forced to close.

I've seen what happens when the electricity goes out and stores are forced to close - people are really nice to each other and help each other out whenever they can.

Let me put it another way: if you owned a gun, would "the electricity is out" be a reason to shoot someone?