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Washington city's ‘guns for gift cards’ gave gun owners up to $300 just in time for Christmas

No politics or debates, just a line around the block for the exchange.

Washington; gun buy back; guns; gun laws
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Washington city's "guns for gift cards" gave gun owners up to $300.

A city in Washington state has pulled off a successful gun buyback event just in time for residents to get some extra holiday cash. The event took place at the Everett Police Department and offered people who turned in their firearms up to $300 per gun, according to The Seattle Times.

The only catch was that the people who participated had to prove that they were in fact residents of the city of Everett. But outside of showing an ID or utility bill with a local address, there were no questions asked about the guns collected. That didn't stop people from telling their stories on how they acquired their firearm.

Gun ownership in America is like a rite of passage in some families and several of the stories collected by The Seattle Times described inherited firearms. But with the holiday fast approaching and some people wanting to clear out space as well as afford to buy gifts for their loved ones, the "guns for gift cards" exchange couldn't have come at a better time.

It's not surprising to most people that Americans have a strong feelings about guns and take full advantage of their constitutional right to own them. The average gun owner in America owns five guns according to researchers. Most people report having guns for protection, while others say they have them for hunting or sport.

Everett Police Department's "guns for gift cards" buyback, a program that was modeled on similar ones in other U.S. cities, was a great way to reduce the number of guns people have in their houses. Everett resident Guy Axelson told The Seattle Times, “They’re just locked up all of the time. I don’t want any more around than what I need.”

black and silver revolver on red textilePhoto by Arnav Singhal on Unsplash

The line to exchange guns for gift cards at the Everett PD was so long that it took people nearly two hours to get to the front to hand over their firearm and collect their gift card. The success of the program contradicted the notion that people don't want to part with their weapons, as well as showing that if an effective and organized way is presented to reduce the number of guns that people will literally line up to take advantage of it.

One of the best things about this event is that there was no need for political posturing. No one was arguing about guns or Second Amendment rights. There weren't any protests about what the police department was doing. Everyone there was simply there for a transaction that would put money in people's pockets right before Christmas.

The entire event took place without any issue. Some residents turned in guns that no longer worked properly and some decided it was better to have fewer guns in their home while they had small children living there. The Seattle Times reported that several folks turned in the firearms due to concerns of rising crime.

Each gun turned in had a monetary value attached to it depending on its type and functionality. For example, AR-15s and AK-47s were worth the most at $300, while rifles and shotguns equaled $200, handguns were $100, and owners of guns that didn't work were offered $25.

Overall, the police department collected 241 guns, people walked out with a few extra dollars and an entire city felt a little safer.

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Two brothers Irish stepdancing to Beyoncé's country hit 'Texas Hold 'Em' is pure delight

The Gardiner Brothers and Queen Bey proving that music can unite us all.

Gardiner Brothers/TikTok (with permission)

The Gardiner Brothers stepping in time to Beyoncé's "Texas Hold 'Em."

In early February 2024, Beyoncé rocked the music world by releasing a surprise new album of country tunes. The album, Renaissance: Act II, includes a song called "Texas Hold 'Em," which shot up the country charts—with a few bumps along the way—and landed Queen Bey at the No.1 spot.

As the first Black female artist to have a song hit No. 1 on Billboard's country music charts, Beyoncé once again proved her popularity, versatility and ability to break barriers without missing a beat. In one fell swoop, she got people who had zero interest in country music to give it a second look, forced country music fans to broaden their own ideas about what country music looks like and prompted conversations about bending and blending musical genres and styles.

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Woman turns creepy text from Jiffy Lube guy into incredible 'teaching moment'

Brilliant 👏👏👏

There's not a woman alive who hasn't suffered through an unwanted come-on from a creep. Some women are so afraid of these encounters they feel they can't be as nice to men as they'd like, for fear their friendliness will be mistaken for flirtation.

One woman's encounter with a creepy come-on has received over 110,000 likes on Twitter because of her flawless response.

Twitter user @LovableAndKind recently shared screenshots from a text exchange between her sister and a Jiffy Lube employee who found her phone number and sent her an unsolicited text.

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Woman perfectly peeling an entire head of garlic in 30 seconds has people mesmerized

"My flabbers have been gasted."

Photos by Daniela on Unsplash (left) and Rens D on Unsplash (right)

Peeling garlic is notoriously challenging.

If you ever cook with fresh garlic, you know what a challenge it can be to remove the cloves from the skin cleanly, especially if you're starting with a full head.

There are various methods people use to peel garlic, with varying levels of success. Doing it by hand works, but will leave you with garlic-smelling fingertips for the better part of a day. Whacking the head on the counter helps separate the cloves from each other, but doesn't help much with removing the skin.

Some people swear by vigorously shaking the skinned cloves around in a covered bowl or jarred lid, which can be surprisingly effective. Some smash the clove with the flat side of a knife to loosen it and then pull it off. Others utilize a rubber roller to de-skin the cloves.

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Howie Hua shares helpful math tips and tricks on social media.

Math is weird.

On the one hand, it's consistent—the solutions to basic math problems are the same in every country in the world. On the other hand, there are multiple strategies to get to those solutions, and it seems like people are still coming up with new ones (much to the chagrin of parents whose kids need help with homework using methods they've never learned).

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Gen Xers are sharing the 15 things that people under 25 will 'never understand'

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Casette tapes, film cameras and landlines were a big part of the pre-2000 world.

There have been a few momentous changes since the dawn of the new millennium, creating an invisible line between those born before and after. The big events that forever changed culture are the creation of the smartphone, dawn of social media and terror attacks on 9/11.

People who were born in 1999 or later have, for the most part, lived in a world where they were either too young to know what life was like before these events or weren’t born yet.

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Shampoo, nightmare, muscles, jumbo — the unexpected origins of 11 everyday words

The etymology of "dog" remains a strange mystery.

Photo by Lisa Therese on Unsplash

The word "jumbo" literally comes from an elephant.

The evolution of language is fascinating, and the etymology of specific words can be a fun little trip through human history as well as human creativity.

Many English words are derived from Greek and Latin, but other European languages make up a good chunk of our language as well. The roots of some words can surprise us, and so can the way certain words came to be. And in some cases, what we don't know can be just as surprising as what we do.

Enjoy diving into the history of 15 words we use every day.

1. Dog

Dog is often one of the first words babies learn to say, and it's one of the first kids learn to spell. But don't let its simplicity fool you. This word is truly a mystery.

The word "dog" comes from dogca, a very rarely used Old English word, but how we started using it as our everyday name for canines, no one knows. "Its origin remains one of the great mysteries of English etymology," according to the Online Etymology Dictionary.

Even more interestingly, no one knows the origins of the Spanish word for "dog" ("perro"), nor do they know the origins of the Polish ("pies") or Serbo-Croatian ("pas") words for our canine friends, either. Who knew dogs were so enigmatic?

2. Nightmare

It's obvious where "night" comes from in "nightmare," but what about "mare"? Surely, were not referring to a female horse here.

Horse, no. But female, yes. Female goblin, to be precise. In Old English, mare means "incubus, nightmare, monster; witch, sorcerer." And "nightmare" started being used around 1300 to refer to "an evil female spirit afflicting men (or horses) in their sleep with a feeling of suffocation." Yikes. Thankfully, now it's just any old bad dream.

3. Jumbo

We've all seen animals named for words with certain meanings, but here we have the opposite. The word "jumbo" came from a large elephant who lived at the London Zoo. Zookeeper Anoshan Anathjeysari named him "Jumbe," the Swahili word for "chief." But his status as one of the largest African bush elephants in Europe in the 19th century caused his nickname, Jumbo, to become synonymous with enormousness.

muscular man exercising

Run, little mouse, run.

Photo by Anastase Maragos on Unsplash

4. Muscle

The Latin word musculus means "little mouse." As hilarious as it sounds, they thought the movement of muscles looked like little mice scurrying under the skin, hence the origin. Kinda ick to think about, but also logical, so here we are.

5. Quarantine

Ah, a word with which we are all familiar, thanks to COVID-19. But do we know what it really means?

If you understand roots, you may guess that "quar" might have something to do with the number four, and you'd be right. In Latin, quadraginta means a period of 40 days. Our usage of "quarantine" to mean isolation from others comes from the Venetian policy of ships coming into port from plague-stricken countries in the late 1300s to remain in port for 40 days before letting people off. The usage to mean any period of time in isolation began being used in the 1600s.

6. Mortgage

Most of us grow up not really understanding what a mortgage is until we buy our first house, but even then, most of us don't know what the word literally means. It comes from Old French, mort gaige, literally meaning "death pledge."

HAHAHAHAHA. Death pledge. Mortgage. That's funny.

However, it doesn't mean you're tied to the debt til you die, even if it feels like it. The death part means the deal dies either when you pay it off or when you become unable to pay. Doesn't really change the fact that it feels a bit like you're signing your life away when you buy a house, though.

ball of yarn

What does a ball of yarn have to do with "clue"?

Photo by Philip Estrada on Unsplash

7. Clue

Oddly enough, "clue" comes from a misspelling (or alternate spelling from before standardized spelling was a thing) of the word "clew," meaning a ball of yarn.

The word itself comes from German, but its usage points to the Greek myth in which Ariadne gives Theseus a ball (or clew) of yarn to help him escape the labyrinth. Now we use it to refer to anything that helps us solve a mystery.

8. Nice

The word "nice" is nice and simple, right? It's the most basic word we use for "pleasant," a definitively positive word. But this seemingly simple word has been through quite the trek in its etymology.

From the Latin nescius, meaning "ignorant, unaware," it was used to mean "timid" or"faint-hearted" before the year 1300. A couple hundred years later, it had morphed to "fussy, fastidious" or "dainty, delicate." In another 100 years, it changed to "precise, careful." Tack on another few hundred years and we're at "agreeable, delightful," and from there it was only short jaunt to "kind, thoughtful."

What a nice journey from insult to compliment.

9. Shampoo

I would have bet money that the word "shampoo" was French in origin, but nope. It's Hindi, coming from the term champo, and the original meaning was "to massage, rub and percuss the surface of (the body) to restore tone and vigor." It's only been used to refer specifically to lathering and washing out strands of hair or carpet since the mid 1800s.

10. Torpedo

Literally Latin for a stingray. As in the marine animal. That comes from the root word torpere, which means "be numb," since a ray's sting can numb you. It doesn't become the word for a propelled underwater explosive until the last couple hundred years.

11. Ambidextrous

We know that left-handedness was seen negatively throughout much of human history, but even the word that means "able to use both hands equally" has a right-handed bias baked into it. The medieval Latin ambidexter literally meansliterally means "right-handed on both sides."

Isn't English fun?


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