Mark this one down as another brilliant idea from NRA lobbyists: allowing more people to walk our streets with concealed, loaded handguns.

Under the proposed National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act recently taken up by a House panel, anyone permitted to carry a hidden gun in his or her home state also could do so in any other state, regardless of its stricter rules. This federal law would override a state’s own policy on guns, forcing every state to accept whatever standards the most lenient one uses.

Here in New Jersey, concealed carry permits are given only to those who demonstrate a "justifiable need," such as a police officer or Superior Court judge. But if this federal law passes, anyone with a permit from a lax state like Florida — where more than a thousand convicts, including violent offenders, have been allowed to carry hidden guns — also could do so here.

That means we’d have little say over who can bring hidden weapons into our own parks, playgrounds, college campuses and bars.

States vary widely in their gun laws. Currently, 38 won’t issue concealed gun permits to anyone convicted of a violent misdemeanor such as assault or a sex crime, 36 won’t issue them to anyone under the age of 21 and 35 require safety training.

By gutting those requirements, this bill would make it harder for local police to distinguish between legal and illegal firearms, and easier for illegal traffickers to transport the guns they sell to criminals.

Not surprisingly, Americans broadly oppose this measure. So does a group of 600 U.S. mayors, and virtually all law enforcement organizations. That’s a much more respectable coalition than the rabble of paranoid gunslingers who insist on their right to pack heat anywhere they go.