Gun Industry Strikes Back: Brownells’ Battle With Coronavirus

Here’s how to put your front sight on a target much too small to see.

There are some people who will tell you that the Second Amendment can’t protect us against a virus, but as world-famous gun and gun accessories retailer Brownells and a unique project called Folding@Home are proving right now, that’s not entirely true. Yes, COVID-19 is far too small to see without an electron microscope, and yes, .308 Win. would probably be a bit overpowered for the job, but Brownells has one thing that can help our nation’s scientists and medical professionals: computing power. And that might just be the secret to hunting the Coronavirus to extinction. Here’s how it works…and how you may be able to help.

Let’s start by introducing Folding@Home. (FAH or F@h) is a distributed computing project for disease research that simulates protein folding, computational drug design, and other types of molecular dynamics. It’s true that most of us aren’t molecular biologists, but those of us who are need more computing power. FAH addresses that need by using the idle resources of personal computers owned by volunteers from all over the world. Now, they’re asking individuals and companies with excess server space and computing abilities to help execute computer modeling simulations to help speed up an otherwise huge and lengthy task. Brownells has stepped up.

“Our IT team learned about the Folding@Home project and their work using computer modeling to better understand the molecular and protein structure of the virus,” said Brownells IT Director Curt Graff. “We are committed to helping protect our country by virtue of our personal protection and sustainability products, but we see this as a way to support the international community in a time of significant need.”

Brownells anticipates it will donate at least 1,300 hours to the project and run approximately 200 simulations on behalf of COVID-19 research. I don’t know about you,  More information about Folding@Home can be found here.