"A new law went into effect on July 1 in Virginia that makes it perfectly legal for someone with a concealed weapon permit and a loaded gun to drive onto school grounds if the weapon remains concealed and its owner remains in the vehicle.

Since there are approximately 120,000 Virginians who already have concealed carry permits, this scenario may happen rather frequently.

The latest chipping away at ill-advised attempts at gun control in the commonwealth will likely have exactly the same outcome as the 1995 switch of one word in state law.

When the legislature changed "may issue" to "shall issue," taking away state officials' discretion and requiring them to issue a concealed carry permit to all who qualified for one, the ranks of Virginia's permit holders swelled from just 2,500 in 1994 to tens of thousands today.

But nothing happened. That's because people who bother to jump through the hoops and register with the state for a gun permit are not the ones we need to fear. Overwhelmingly, permit holders have proven themselves to be good citizens and responsible individuals who carry weapons for protection, not predation.

Judging by their past performance, the new law - which passed the House of Delegates 85-9 the state Senate 28-11, and was signed into law earlier this year by Gov. Mark Warner - will likely have similar negligible effects. Nobody will know which soccer mom is packing heat or which SUV is toting a gun along with the bookbags.

Of course, the Virginia PTA is outraged by even this modest restoration of Second Amendment rights. They should talk to their counterparts in Utah, where teachers, principals and other adults with concealed carry permits are not only allowed to carry loaded weapons onto school grounds, they can be kept in plain view inside their vehicles.

However, as Republican state Sen. Michael Waddoups - who sponsored Utah's much more lenient gun law - recently noted, there have been no incidents in which a firearm was inappropriately used on school grounds since the law went into effect.

Utah principals don't even know which of their employees carry concealed firearms because there are severe consequences if they are displayed inside. But the weapons are available if, God forbid, the employees ever have to use them.

That's the same lesson to be learned from Virginia's 11-year experiment.

Concealed carry permit holders are in effect a free security detail, making everybody in the vicinity that much safer.

This is no longer theoretical. Permit holders in Virginia have already proven they're not a threat to society as they go about their business. Their right to be armed if they so choose preempts local ordinances and has withstood several legal challenges.

Fairfax County was forced to back down from its ban on guns in rec centers and government buildings, but no gunfights have been reported in either.

It's a lesson the District of Columbia has yet to learn. Last week, the House of Representatives passed an amendment that would repeal provisions of D.C.'s highly restrictive 1976 gun law requiring even legal firearms in private homes to be disassembled and unloaded. In other words, completely worthless for defending against intruders.

Virginia Congressman Tom Davis, R-11th, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, correctly called the measure "an unnecessary and potentially dangerous assault on home rule" last week.

But the D.C. gun law itself is both unnecessary and potentially dangerous to city residents.

It should be repealed, just not by Congress. If the City Council is ever honest enough to admit it doesn't work." (Editorial, The Washington Examiner, July 6, 2005)