Whenever I see this well-funded campaign urging votes for yes on I-594, assuring us that it “believes in the Second Amendment,” really it does, “but all it seeks is …” I can’t help but be reminded of how the walrus and the carpenter concealed their true intentions from the oysters they were addressing in Lewis Carroll’s poem “O Oysters, come and walk with us!” The Walrus did beseech, “A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, along the briny beach: …”

Why am I reminded of that? Because I think the real motivation behind this truly lavish campaign is an attempt from the anti-gun lobby to start off what might eventually be an end-run for them around the (unwelcome) decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, that the wording of the Second Amendment means what it was intended to mean, and not what they contended it should mean.

If there is such a glaring loophole in the purchase and sale of guns that needs to be addressed by I-594, why is it that none of the professional police associations have come out in support of it? Aren’t they the ones most at risk if such obvious loopholes exist?

And why does the campaign apparently seek to create the impression that just about anyone can walk into a Washington gun show and buy a weapon with no questions asked? That just is not true, as anyone who has been through the process well knows.

Also, if someone seeks to buy (on-line or person-to-person) from a licensed gun dealer, that gun dealer will, by the terms of his or her Federal Firearms License, carry out a background check on the prospective buyer and the FBI under the NICS procedure (National Instant Criminal Background Check System), a check which intentionally takes less than two minutes. So, several background-check safeguards are already in place, contrary to the impression being given by the campaign for yes on I-594.

Further, how is it that cities with the most restrictive gun-laws in the nation often have the highest number of gun-use crimes? No matter what rules or laws are passed, those with criminal intentions will acquire their guns with difficulty, while the law-abiding can so easily be deprived of any effective means to defend themselves against such criminals.

Let me suggest a three-part scenario the (wealthy) anti-gun lobby could be envisaging here. First pass I-594, even with its exaggeration, and eventually there will be a register of everyone who has bought or sold a weapon (to be maintained by yet another expensive bureaucracy, of course).

So what comes next? Why, the proclamation that the register does not contain the names and details of all those who purchased their weapons before the passage of I-594.

Thus follows another lavish, well-funded campaign to convince others that there should be a register of everyone owning a weapon (law-abiding only, for obvious reasons), and its details, so that it cannot be sold without jumping through the bureaucratic hoops already in place.

What comes after achieving those two stages? Perhaps a win-win situation for the anti-gun lobby, whereby annual licenses are required for each weapon, with taxes and fees payable for each one (necessary to sustain the burgeoning register’s bureaucracy), so that non-wealthy gun-owners are so overburdened they have no option but to start giving up ownership of weapons.

The anti-gun lobby has by now achieved its long-sought agenda. The Supreme Court’s unwelcome decision on the Second Amendment has been negated. Law-abiding citizens have largely been disarmed, even if they are now at the mercy of the still-armed criminals. But hey, c’est la vie.

In short, let me urge voters, concerned about their Constitutional freedoms, don’t be misled by this campaign. Vote no on I-594.

H. Norman Whiteley, Kirkland