Voters should oppose Initiative 594

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Initiative 594 is a perfect example of “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” It is a lie that is being sold to people in the hopes that they will unwittingly vote Initiative 594 into law. Don’t be fooled by those willing to promote the lie to justify the ends.

Our rights are being eroded one small lick, one tiny nibble, one little bite at a time and this cannibalism is being sold to us as “reasonable and necessary.” These efforts to decimate our rights are labeled as “common sense” legislation. When a thief steals from you, do you call that common sense?

We didn’t have mass murder events during my childhood because we were taught to respect life. I grew up playing cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, and watching cartoons. But now those games and cartoons of yesterday are widely considered to be politically incorrect. Today, we can’t say the word Indian without being labeled racist. We cannot call a robber a robber for fear of hurting his feelings, and Elmer Fudd and Huckleberry Hound are now politically incorrect.

Today, kids can’t play with toy guns, but they can kill people amass in violent video games that devalue human life, reward players for violent actions, and remove all consequence from the equations. Games like Grand Theft Auto, Call Of Duty, Battlefield, etc are nothing less than mass marketing extreme violence to kids. That’s ok, but Elmer Fudd isn’t? (Look up Rep. Robin Kelly Ill, Children’s Firearm Marketing Safety Act.)



As kids, when someone got hurt playing cops and robbers, we all saw it and felt their pain. That sense of reality is sorely missing in today’s electronic gaming environment. While the games are not the sole crux of the issue, they do contribute to the environment that has evolved where kids today have no respect for human life. In many cases, they kill more people playing these games before school than most professional soldiers do in the entirety of their military careers. Now just think about that and the mindset it implants into our youth. And today’s youth are tomorrow’s adults. Commonsense starts at home and grows from there.

Oppose Initiative 594. Another bad law won’t make things better. The issue isn’t the gun, its education and parenting. So focus on those issues,and leave our rights alone.

Raymond Williams

Battle Ground