The other night, I read a Facebook thingy about Initiative 594 (gun control measure). It instructed Forks folks to vote no on the initiative because the entire town of Forks is going to be jailed if it passes. According to the Facebook thingy, merely handing your gun to anyone, including your dog, will get you thrown in jail if you do not go through the proper channels of transfershipness.
This alone didn’t worry me so much because my dog hasn’t taken a hunter’s safety course so I wouldn’t hand him a gun anyway. However, I was worried that the FPD would fall dangerously behind on their ticket quota if they had to track down everyone who sold or even loaned a gun to anyone else in Forks without background checking them. This prompted me to research the issue.
The fact that I researched this initiative is worthy of a pat on the back. I know that most of you come to my column for absolute facts on the issues surrounding Forks, but the truth is that I usually make things up. You usually will get more factual information from the town gossips … all 3,000 of them.
In this instance though, I really researched this issue thoroughly. I didn’t get my info from sites such as www.we-heart-guns.com or www.guns-kill-everyone.com either. Both types of sites push propaganda. Propaganda is a nice word for lies. Read the actual initiative to see how pointless it is for yourself.
I’m assuming that this initiative was written with good intentions. In Fairytale Land, where unicorns are everywhere, criminals who fail background checks will admit defeat and give up on owning a gun altogether. The scene will end in Full House-style where Danny Tanner sits the criminal down and says, “I know you really wanted to murder someone, but you have to accept that you cannot have a gun.” The criminal will then reply, “You’re right. I should have thought about that before I became a criminal!” The show will end with everyone hugging.
Sadly, in the real world, there are no unicorns. Also, criminals still get guns. California has the strictest gun laws in the country and is currently the 12th most dangerous state with regards to gun violence. Washington is one of the top 15 SAFEST states. I’m not sure we want to be more like California, for a lot of reasons. One being that their strict gun laws aren’t working.
As it turns out, very few of us in Forks are going to become criminals if the initiative passes anyway. There are about 23,343 exemptions in the initiative. Want to sell a gun to your neighbor? Just claim he is immediate family or an in-law or an ex-in-law to receive an exemption. Chances are good in Forks that you won’t even be lying to the government. Your neighbor probably is your immediate family … or in-law … or was an in-law at one time. There are perks to being related to everyone.
For questions or comments … or to get a dog hunter safety course going, e-mail me at christyrasmussen@yahoo.com.
