Our view: Gun laws are taking a radical turn

When it comes to gun fights, things are pretty quiet on the Potomac these days. Democrats, cowed by the National Rifle Association's political clout, have no taste for pushing gun control up the agenda. And even if they did, the landmark 2008 Supreme Court ruling that the Second Amendment provides a right for individuals to own guns largely leaves them disarmed.

OPPOSING VIEW: Restricting firearms makes us less safe

The states, however, are another matter. Gun rights activists have taken their national victories not as a reason to pat themselves on the back, but as reason to push forward with an agenda that ranges from radical to idiotic.

Last month, for instance, Wyoming joined Arizona, Alaska and Vermont to become the fourth state to allow concealed firearms with no permit whatsoever. Also last month, Mississippi removed most of the exceptions to its concealed weapons law, allowing people to take guns to sporting events, and into bars, churches, schools and colleges, among other places. Just this month, North Dakota joined more than a dozen other states that have said an employer cannot ban an employee from bringing a weapon to work, so long as it is kept in the worker's vehicle.

Editor's note An earlier online version of this editorial stated that Wyoming, instead of Mississippi, had removed most of the exceptions to its concealed weapons law. The error was caused by a technological glitch and the text has been amended.

Even if you view this as a legitimate exercise of personal freedom, it's hardly wise, or without limitations on the freedom of others. Take the rights of property owners, for instance. Under many of these laws, businesses cannot object to someone bringing a weapon onto their premises.

Pennsylvania, meanwhile, is on the verge of becoming the latest to join the craze of states passing laws described as "stand your ground" by supporters and "shoot first" by critics. These give people who use deadly force in public places many of the same protections they might have in defending their homes from an intruder. They remove an individual's obligation to retreat from a threatening situation if such an option exists. And in many cases they provide a legal defense should he or she kill or injure an innocent bystander by mistake.

What we are seeing is a systematic campaign for a doctrine of guns anywhere, anytime and in the hands of just about anyone, without consequence for irresponsible actions. When the gun lobby first started winning concealed carry laws about two decades ago, it said that vigorous background checks and permitting procedures should be maintained, and that some places should remain gun-free. Having won such laws in most states, it is now working to undo those parameters.

The gun lobby is also going after the two states (Wisconsin and Illinois) that do not allow concealed firearms, and the nine that leave the issuance of a permit to the discretion of law enforcement. In its one major foray into Congress recently, gun extremists fell just two votes shy in the U.S. Senate on a 2009 bill that would have forced any state to recognize a carry permit issued by any other state. That measure — a monumental infringement on states rights and local governance, to say the least — would have forced urbanized states dealing with gangs, drug lords and other violent criminals to essentially adopt gun rights deemed appropriate in more rural states.

These are precisely the kinds of results that opponents of gun rights predicted during the multi-decade debate over the confused meaning of the Second Amendment. From a constitutional perspective, the Supreme Court may have gotten it right. But from a standpoint of public safety, lawmakers are getting it very wrong. A right to keep and bear arms should come with restraints that equally protect those who have no interest in owning them.