Photo by Elyse Harrell.

In the wake of Barack Obama's election, the gun community has fallen prey to a variety of fears, some of which seem to me to be little less than preposterously paranoid. One fantastic fear is that Obama will try somehow to repeal the concealed-carry revolution by enacting some sort of national CCW ban.

This has inspired me to write a brief history of concealed-carry, within which I shall consider the likelihood of a national concealed-carry ban.

In early English common law there were no restrictions on weapons (except against Jews). Every Christian Englishman was required to be armed, to serve in the militia and to respond when the "hue and cry" went up that a robber or other felon was escaping.

The first restriction on weapons carrying appeared in 1327, during the troubled reign of Edward II. It apparently prohibited coming into court armed, but it could have been read as a general restriction on going armed anywhere.

Whatever it meant, it was widely disobeyed. It was reenacted 50 years later in the also-troubled reign of Richard II, reenactment being a common medieval response to a statute being disobeyed.

This statute lay dormant for three centuries until the reign of the Catholic King James II, who tried to use it to disarm Protestants. His prosecution of the Protestant mayor of Bristol (then England's second-largest city) for carrying a gun ended with the mayor's acquittal on the court's finding that English law entitled "gentlemen" to carry weapons.

American law did not try to restrict weapons carrying until the 19th century's concealed-weapon laws. Though they did literally apply against guns, these laws were aimed at thugs carrying knives, blackjacks and the like.

The 19th century explanation of how these laws were valid: state and federal constitutional protections for the right to arms applied only to the "manly," open carrying of arms, not to thugs carrying secret weapons.

Early in the 20th century, state weapons laws began to allow local government to grant permits so good citizens could carry firearms for their protection. Unfortunately, corrupt local politicians seized upon this as a mechanism for currying favor by allowing the wealthy few to "buy" permits--by contributing to politicians' campaign funds.

During the 1980s, the National Rifle Association began a campaign to enact laws defining rational qualifications for a concealed-carry permit and giving every qualified applicant a right to such a permit. As of today, 40 states have enacted these laws. Of course, California and New York--where concealed-carry corruption is a way of life--are not among the 40.

Now we are told, on what basis I know not, that Obama is planning a federal ban on concealed carry. It is certainly true that Obama is deeply anti-gun despite his mendacious pretenses to the contrary. And it is true that he is from one of the few states that has no exception allowing issuance of concealed-carry permits.

But it is hard to overstate how preposterously paranoid it sounds to suggest that Obama is planning to try to cancel out the NRA's CCW revolution.

Let's begin by understanding the legal basis for concealed-carry laws. Every state except Vermont and possibly Alaska bans concealed carry as a matter of state law. Provisions for a permit (shall-issue or discretionary-issue) are exceptions to that law. The federal government has no constitutional power to alter or abolish state laws.

There are only two ways the federal government could reverse the concealed-carry tide. Congress--not Obama--could enact a federal law conditioning receipt of some kind of federal funds on every state having a concealed-carry ban with no permit exception.

How would that work? Recall the federal 55 mph speed limit. States could not be forced to enact a 55 mph speed limit, but if they didn't they would not receive federal highway funds.