On The Right - marketing of books

National Review, July 12, 1999 by William F. Buckley Jr.

Well, the GOP is not about to endorse guns for everybody. The attritions the NRA objects to are in fact welcome, or should be. Checks against impulsive buys are a good idea, as also a record of guns sold and to whom. There is no need for assault weapons to protect against random individual aggressors. The proposition that you need to protect the right of citizens to own machine guns in case the modern Indians come charging in should be laid to rest as yesterday's reasonable demand, unreasonable in current circumstances.

But the orderly way for the GOP to proceed is by deferring to the rights of states to experiment with gun control in their own way. Some state policies can be opposed by appeal to the Second Amendment, and these necessarily go for adjudication to Washington. But the states should write their own laws governing traffic in arms, and the Republicans would be wise to acknowledge traditional apportionment of responsibilities.

-Universal Press Syndicate