Letter: Laws born of events rarely make sound policy

I guess I was not surprised that the Naperville City Council passed the semi-automatic rifle ban, but I was not expecting the vote to be 8-1.

When governmental bodies take action in response to a specific event, even if the event is horrific, they usually enact policies which are ineffective and require significant fixing later on. And these fixes end up requiring a sometimes endless series of Band-Aid solutions.

When legislators make decisions so they can feel better about themselves or because "we have to do something," the result is rarely good public policy.

Perhaps 5 or 10 years from now, we'll look back at the Naperville ordinance and say, "Naperville led the way with regard to effective statewide legislation which reduced the ability of the mentally ill and violent criminals to obtain semi-automatic rifles." I hope that is the case.

My life experience tells me otherwise.

Paul Radzicki

Naperville