INEVITABLY, THE Tucson shootings have reopened the debate on whether Americans would be safer or less safe if gun laws permitted people to carry concealed firearms even — or especially — in places like government buildings or college classrooms. “Concealed carry’’ is a popular law in Arizona — even injured Representative Gabrielle Giffords supported it — and some backers have suggested that the best defense against future shootings would be to allow civilians to carry arms in more places. In fact, one passerby to last weekend’s shooting, Joseph Zamudio, rushed to the scene from a nearby drugstore with his hand pressed around the handgun in his pocket.
But his role in the unfolding events hardly cinches the case for easy access to firearms. When Zamudio arrived, two men and a woman had already tackled the shooting suspect, Jared Loughner, and a man was holding Loughner’s semiautomatic. Zamudio did not immediately perceive this and went after that bystander holding the gun. He told reporters he “grabbed his arm and shoved him into a wall’’ before realizing he wasn’t the shooter.
Fortunately, he didn’t shoot.
In these feverish split seconds, Zamudio showed good judgment in another way. He kept his handgun in his pocket because he “didn’t want to be confused as a second gunman.’’ That reflects another concern about unrestricted concealed-gun laws — that in the chaos of gunfire a helpful armed good Samaritan could be mistaken for a killer.
Concealed carry is spreading across the nation, as a standing rebuttal to those who seek to keep guns off the streets. With more guns carried by law-abiding citizens, wouldn’t everyone feel better protected? Not likely. Only three states allow a virtually unfettered right to carry arms, but others are reducing their restrictions, one by one. Earlier this month, New Hampshire’s new Republican legislature overturned a ban on concealed weapons in their own House floor and visitor’s gallery. This is letting gun rights run amok.
States cannot count on all legal gun owners having the good sense of Joseph Zamudio. After all, it was Arizona’s law that let Jared Loughner — despite his rejection by the Army for drug use and previous scrapes with the law — come to that 
