OUR VIEW: Please check your firearm at the door

Staff Editorial
Published: September 29, 2008

» SUMMARY: There is merit in Gordon Meriwether’s suggestion to prohibit guns at local government meetings.

Every so often, the topic of gun rights grabs headlines in Culpeper. And when it does, count on a passionate response from people who, otherwise, could care less what happens in our community.

Such was the case Sept. 9 when more than a dozen members of the Fairfax-based Virginia Citizen Defense League showed up at a Culpeper Town Council meeting — pistols on hips — to protest a relatively insignificant proposal by the police chief to regulate the discharge of firearms in town limits.

All of this rubbed town resident Gordon Meriwether the wrong way, and, to a large degree, we can understand why. In a Star-Exponent column Sept. 17, Meriwether had harsh words for the “intimidating” out-of-towners.

His column brought up a difficult question that has merit on both sides: Should guns even be allowed at local government meetings in the first place? Meriwether argued no, asking Town Council to pass an ordinance to ban them from “legislative sessions, committee meetings and public hearings.”

As we see it, this is a tough one. We strongly support gun ownership as a tenant of the Second Amendment. In the right hands, guns can be a deterrent to crime and a way to enhance safety.

But where do you draw the line when it comes to a person’s right to carry a gun in public? Obviously, you can’t pack heat on a plane, in a courtroom or in the hallowed halls of Congress. Perhaps the same rules should apply at public meetings of local government — but only if there is police security at the door.

Will that ever happen in Culpeper? Probably not. But it’s certainly an idea worth considering in a public format.