I'll never forget the day State Trooper Lyle Wohlers died. He was shot in the head by a 15-year-old kid who, without a gun, would have been a punk car thief. With a gun hidden in his pocket, he became a murderer.

I have a hard time understanding this frenzy to give virtually anyone a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Where is our common sense? Why are we so anxious to put ourselves, our police officers and our kids at risk? What makes our legislators so sure that everyone who can buy a weapon is safe with a hidden weapon?

When I was a senior in high school, one of my friends was murdered, execution style. He was murdered late at night in the gas station where he worked--with a gun he had hidden in a drawer to protect himself. So much for that concealed weapon's protecting an innocent person. I'll always remember being on the school bus that carried our entire high school student body of 60 kids to his funeral. All of us sobbing, we couldn't understand why something so terrible could have happened in our little ranching community. Why, people looked out for one another there. Not that night.

An acquaintance once told me how he liked to blow up rabbits with a machine gun he'd bought. Blow up rabbits? What's the sport in that? I don't believe the framers of our Bill of Rights envisioned the right of people to own automatic weapons that could blow up rabbits, or spray across a school yard, killing innocent children. I don't understand a debate about gun rights that defies common sense.

Where I grew up, everyone had a gun. Most people hunted. And when they had finished their hunt, their guns were immediately locked up where a careless child or a criminal couldn't get at them. Guns were respected-and feared for the damage they could do. There was certainly no talk of the right to bear arms. Of course, they had a right to bear arms. But those arms carried with them a responsibility to make sure no one died because they were used carelessly or callously.

Kids in my hometown learned gun safety at an early age. They learned how to use guns, how to care for them, what they were for. They were for hunting, a sport, not for slaughter. You didn't shoot carelessly or indiscriminately. You never played with guns and never threatened anyone, even in jest. Every one of us knew gun accidents could be lethal.

What, then, is a common sense approach to the availability of guns and permits for concealed weapons? First, someone seeking a concealed weapon permit should have to show a need. Just because you have a constitutional right to carry a weapon doesn't mean you have a constitutional right to conceal a weapon. Demonstrating need gives all of us at least some assurance that the vast majority of people we encounter on the freeway or in a movie theater or supermarket won't have a lethal weapon that could harm us.

Second, anyone seeking a permit should have to prove he or she has taken a gun safety course. That should be a minimum requirement to protect the gun owner as well as the rest of us. We need to make sure that children aren't carrying concealed weapons and put responsibility on parents for supervising the gun use of their minor children. And, since we know that the Brady checks are letting thousands of criminals and mentally ill people buy guns, we should restore our own Colorado Bureau of Investigation's more accurate gun checks. The idea that anyone who can buy a gun should be able to conceal it defies common sense. We know that not every gun purchaser is safe. Why would we want dangerous people to have the right to conceal their weapons?

Finally, just as cigarette companies are bearing some of the financial responsibility for the huge costs their products have placed on the public, so should gun manufacturers who flood the market with their products. In our society, personal responsibility is at the heart of our constitution and of our society. That standard applies to individuals, parents-and corporations. We should encourage it, not inhibit it. That's just common sense.