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Sunday, December 16, 2012

Gun Control and Local Decision-Making

Edmund Burke taught us that few rights are absolute:  That is, a community's particular circumstances will determine the extent to which a right may be virtuously exercised.  To that end, if a town, county, parish, or state determines that it is in their best interest to ban or restrict this or that gun, sale of this or that ammunition, etc., we must let them go their way, however much we may disagree with their decision.

What must not occur is a command from on high directed to every town and village and state to ban this or that - or else.  A couple hundred men and women in D.C. oughtn't try to settle the issue for more than 300,000,000 others who all live under quite different conditions.  No, let each locality decide for itself; that is the only wise and moral way of handling a question of this magnitude in a country of this size.

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