Arizona to Allow Concealed Weapons Without Permit

To be honest, I’d prefer passage of open carry laws in states that do not allow it or require a permit to open carry.  I feel safer knowing who is packing and who is not. 

But here is an AP story on Arizona’s effort to expand government protection of the right to bear arms: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100416/ap_on_re_us/us_xgr_concealed_weapons_arizona.

According to the Brady Campaign, 35 states allow open carry with 3 forbidding it altogether.   

However, and this may surprise some, I am 100% in favor of laws that allow businesses, churches, and other property owners to bar gunholders from entry – whether concealed carry or open carry.  This is the only consistent property rights approach.  In other words, your right to bear arms only applies to public areas (excepting certain government spaces), your private property, and the private property of those who invite/allow you on it without telling you not to carry. 

I know this is wandering a bit, but no, I don’t agree with the Supreme Court’s rationale in Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins and would dislike seeing it expanded in the area of free speech or for a right like bearing arms.  In the words of Justice Chin in the dissent to Fashion Valley Mall, LLC, v. National Labor Relations Board, “Shopping centers are private property dedicated to doing business. Their owners should not have to permit all expressive activity that the California and United States Constitutions protect in public places. A shopping center owner should be allowed to enforce reasonable restrictions to protect its business activities even if the government could not impose similar restrictions.”