The Pacific Northwest is a beautiful region, one I’ve often dreamed of visiting or possibly even living in. Trees, rain, non-Southwest Georgia-levels of heat, it almost sounds like paradise to me. There’s just one problem with that part of the country, and that’s all the anti-gun loons that live in the larger cities.

Oregon, in particular, has a particularly insane breed of anti-gunner that continually push to make it almost impossible to own a gun in the state. After all, they wanted to restrict round capacity to just five shots and restrict ammo purchases to just 50 rounds per month.

Well, that same breed is at it again, this time with a gun storage law.

Carol Manstrom says she lost her 18-year-old son when he grabbed his father’s unsecured pistol and shot himself. Paul Kemp lost his brother-in-law when a man opened fire with a stolen AR-15 assault-style rifle at a shopping mall.

On Wednesday, Manstrom and Kemp helped deliver 2,000 signatures to Oregon’s elections office as part of an effort to get a measure on the 2020 ballot that would create the stiffest law in America requiring the safe storage of firearms.

The initiative would require guns to be secured with a trigger or cable lock, or in a locked container. It also mandates that a lost or stolen firearm be reported within 24 hours and makes violators of the measure liable for any injury from an unsecured weapon, except in matters of self-defense or defense of another person.

So, basically, you’re on the hook for what anyone else does with your gun, even if they don’t have permission to access the gun. It also means that while the law explicitly permits gun locks to be used, you could still be on the hook for whatever happens.

You see, gun locks are usually keyed locks. A lot of people drop their keys the moment they come in the door. In fact, most people do.

If someone takes those keys, accesses the gun, and then misuses that weapon, you’re on the hook for whatever happens. Especially if the person who accesses the gun commits suicide or is otherwise unable or unwilling to admit that they had to steal the gun owner’s keys to access the weapon in the first place. It’ll just look like it wasn’t secured.

Either that or the measure is unenforceable.

So what’s this really about? Guilt.

Manstrom, with a cardboard box containing the 2,000 signatures next to her, described how she lost her son Will in 2017, just a month after he and his girlfriend split up. Teens sometimes make impulsive decisions, Manstrom said.

“In the case of my son Will, it was a decision that we’ll never be able to take back,” Manstrom said at a news conference in the state capitol. “If a loaded gun was not easily accessible to him that night, I believe he would be with us today.”

Then why didn’t she or her husband have the gun secured?

I’m sorry, but why should the entire state of Oregon pay because a couple of parents failed to notice the potential warning signs that their son was suicidal? I hate to be an ass here, but that’s what happened. Manstrom feels guilty and now she wants to punish everyone else for her own sins.

The truth of the matter is that mandatory gun storage laws make those firearms more difficult for people to access, resulting in the loss of innocent life. I’m sorry, but Manstrom’s guilt isn’t sufficient grounds to result in more people being killed so she can feel better about her own perceived failures.

My hope is that voters in Oregon feel the same way.