It appears Natchez Aldermen reacted Tuesday night not on common sense or reasoned research, but on an emotional reaction.

That rarely ends well.

On Tuesday, aldermen heard concerns from a citizen who is seeking to have pit bull breed dogs banned in the city.

The man who came before the aldermen spoke from the heart and presented real-world evidence of attacks both in our community and in our region.

And the issue of vicious dogs is truly a concern.

However, we urge aldermen not to get in a hurry and simply pass a difficult to enforce, blanket ban of a specific breed of dogs.

If a specific breed was banned, how long would it take for the owners who seek to breed dogs to be vicious to simply move on to another, non-banned breed?

Dogs are only as good as the humans who train them and are responsible for their care and behavior.

Let’s take our time and find a way to truly address the problem.

Rather than making a new law and banning a breed, let’s make sure we look at existing laws on the books and make sure some of those cannot first be applied.

Enforcing those could go a long way toward resolving the problem.

Further, vigorously prosecuting the owners of a dog that is found to attack someone would probably go a long way toward truly attacking the problem.