Concealed carry legislation went to the governor, and he signed it, about a month ago. (For an overview of that legislation, see Mary Spicuzza’s Concealed carry bill heads to Walker for signature. A provision of the bill allows communities to place restrictions on the presence of otherwise lawfully-concealed weapons, beyond the restrictions (police stations, court houses, schools, and places that post notices against their presence) already in the law.

This leaves cities like Whitewater with a choice: add additional limitations on the presence of concealed weapons, or rely solely on the prohibitions now part of state law. For a discussion of this issue in Whitewater, see Kevin Hoffman’s Whitewater council looking at limits on concealed carry.

Many towns will have this debate. A video of Whitewater’s preliminary discussion appears below. A few remarks:

Limits on the right. There’s both a federal and a state constitutional right to bear arms. (For the state right, see, in a pdf file, Article I, Sec. 25, Wisconsin Constitution.) And yet, for it all, it’s lawful to place restrictions on the right – including restrictions on concealed carry. Not only does our state statute allow communities to impose additional restrictions, but it’s also certain that some additional concealed-carry restrictions, as they statute allows, some are constitutional.

So, what limits should be imposed? I don’t know. The reason it’s a hard question is because one tries to weight a right against an uncertain and unknown risk – that harm will come from the presence of a concealed weapon in a public building. In weighing that way, under the state statute, one tries to define the right: how expansive, or narrow, should it be?

There is risk from a concealed weapon, as there is from the absence of a defensive weapon in a crisis, but how much risk is unknown, and unknowable. We cannot know, as Providence does, what our choices will mean. I’ve been opposed consistently to the idea simply because a parade of horribles might result from a thing, that one should ban the thing. Much intrusive and restrictive legislation depends on scaring people into action with a list of shocking, awful, and terrible possibilities, with no assessment of likelihood.

In this case, it’s a question for which I have no answer, except to suggest that guns should be kept away from meetings of the Common Council. If there’s a concern about safety at a council meeting, then our community should provide a police presence. (Although the state statute does not prohibit concealed guns in the Capitol, it gives Whitewater the right to limit guns at council sessions.) Our political meetings should be free of weapons, concealed or otherwise, except those of a police officer.

Even then, I don’t have a firm reason for limitations in one place case over others.

A right – however defined – is not limited by a politician or bureaucrat’s imagination. Whatever one decides, that decision should depend on more than a council member declaring that he or she just can’t grasp, grok, or get something.

That’s not the measure of anyone’s rights – they do not cease simply because a politician is unable to grasp their existence, or the possibility of their exercise. No citizen owes his liberty to a bureaucrat’s or politician’s cleverness, creativity, or powers of imagination.

So much of stodgy Whitewater thinks this way: How can it be? Can you imagine that? I don’t appreciate that! I’m offended by that! Shouldn’t there be a law?

This tired attitude is contrary to America’s respect for individual liberty, and her open, tolerant character.

Daily life goes on. For people in the city – whether public or private workers – whatever risks they face today are similar to the ones they faced without incident yesterday. That doesn’t mean there may not be problems or tragedies, but that risks may not have fluctuated much, up or down. In general, since the governor signed the concealed-carry law, life will prove unchanged for most people. There’s a powerful difference between prudence and worry.

It’s enough – and all there can be, really – for a representative merely to vote his conscience after having considered this right thoughtfully.