I have empathy for John McCann. His city council had the opportunity to vote on making a formal, yet non-binding, resolution to ask for pervasive gun control that would fundamentally change our American society, and in the end, he voted to do just that. I don’t know what he was trying to accomplish by being against the ban and asking for help defeating it, only to apparently change his mind in deliberations and end up voting for it. I do know how difficult and lonely it can be on the dais. I have come to the conclusion that the only way for an elected official to keep the course is to have a set of core principles that are immutable. Some issues are difficult, but most are not, if you know what you believe, and why you believe it.
The Second Amendment is special because it is one of the of principles that formed the guiding light of the American Revolution and the nation that was born out of it. This is the concept of Natural Law. America is special (and I believe that it is blessed), because it is a country that acknowledges that the rights of the people are given by God and not the government. We naturally have the right to live without being harmed or persecuted. We have the right to have property that is ours, and that we can do with what we please. We have the right to earn a living, pursue what makes us happy and to keep the fruits of our labors.
We have the right to defend ourselves against the killer, the rapist, the thief, the tyrant and the tyrannical government, and this is where John McCann really failed. We are all horrified by the pain caused by the psychotic, deranged and agents of evil who use guns as weapons against innocent people. It is tempting to look for an easy answer to this unfathomable problem, but to tear at our natural God given right of self-defense and our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms, with which to exert that defense, is to rip at the fabric of what makes America great.
Some argue that a non-binding resolution is meaningless and so the vote is then meaningless. I disagree. A resolution like this is one of the few opportunities in the life of an elected official to stand for something that is greater than himself. Voting to support the concept of weakening the Second Amendment is like voting to support the concept of taking away the right to free speech, or the right to a fair and speedy trial or the right to be protected from unlawful search and seizure laws. It is not just gun control; it is an assault on the foundational place the Constitution has in our American culture and way of life.