A local story here in the state of Washington is making national news after a man who sold his Sig Sauer handgun ended up getting robbed at gunpoint—with the gun he just sold.

Police said the seller and his companion met the prospective buyer in a parking lot and got into the buyer’s car, where the seller showed his handgun to the buyer, who agreed to purchase it, police told the station.

Police said the trio agreed to head to the buyer’s apartment so the seller could demonstrate how to clean and reassemble the weapon before the purchase was finalized. That’s when, police said, the acquaintance placed a live round of ammunition into the gun’s chamber, pointed it at the seller and asked, ”How does it feel to get robbed with your own gun?”

How many judgment errors were in just those two paragraphs?  First of all, he got into the man’s car.  Never put yourself in that kind of position with someone you do not know—and “acquaintance” is nowhere near safe to be in a car alone with, especially when you’re about to hand them a firearm.

That brings me to another point.  Why did he not have a handgun of his own?  Why wasn’t he carrying?  If he only had the one gun, why sell your only firearm?  Why did he have no way of defending himself?

Thirdly, he went to the man’s apartment so he could “demonstrate how to clean and reassemble the weapon before the purchase was finalized.”  I don’t even know where to begin here.  There is no way you should be selling a handgun in a private sale to someone who doesn’t know how to use it and clean it.  If they’re gun newbies, they should be going to a gun store, taking a class, getting trained on when and how to use it.  If someone I was selling a gun to suddenly claimed that they needed me to show them how to use it and care for it, one of two things is going on:

1) They are clueless about guns and you should not sell to them.

2) They are lying, and they want the gun so they can use it against you or someone else, and you should not only NOT sell to them, but you should vacate the premises immediately, document how much information he has about you or where you live, and be watchful because now you have someone who needs/wants a gun for nefarious purposes…and knows he can find one at your house.

In addition, you do not go to someone’s home when you are just “acquainted,” and especially not alone, to sell them a firearm when you don’t have another one on you.  You are on their turf, and now they are armed—because you just armed them.  To think that you are somehow still safe in that situation is absolutely asinine.

This is just the kind of thing that gun-grabbers love to hear about.  “SEE,” they will now scream, “BACKGROUND CHECKS FOR ALL.”  No.  That’s now how this works. For the record, I’d be willing to bet that the only reason this story made the national news is because it just so happens that one of, if not THE, only gun control measure on the ballot this cycle is in Washington State, where liberals are pushing extremely hard for background checks to be required of any gun transfer—even if you sell it to a family member.

Under the proposed law, any gun sale has to be reported to the government.  What would that create?  A gun registry.  A database of gun owners.  Number of guns, addresses.  Cross check that with your Facebook data, phone records, credit card purchases, and pretty soon you have a very solid database of who has a gun, how many, and whether they like the government or not.  See where this is going?

Gun control is all about the control, period.  The fact that they’re going to end up using one idiot’s stupidity to bolster that control is not something Washington state voters (or any American, for that matter) should be willing to accept.