The legal repartee before the Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday over the state's concealed carry law revealed the two key points in this contentious issue.

• "The police, the state, the legislature have the right to regulate the right to bear arms," said Justice Maureen O'Connor. "It's not an unfettered right."

• "When you are exercising your constitutional right, you shouldn't be arrested for it," said William Gustavson, the Cincinnati attorney representing four plaintiffs challenging the existing law.

The current law allows people to carry concealed firearms under certain conditions, but the only way to find out if you meet those conditions is to get arrested, go to court and prove it. That is contrary to the basic Constitutional assumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty. Gustavson and his clients are right. The law is bad and the Supreme Court should uphold the rulings of two lower courts and throw it out.

But Justice O'Connor, a former lieutenant governor and the court's newest member, was also right. The right to bear arms is not unfettered. Because of their potential to cause deadly harm, the state has a vested interest in regulating the use of firearms. Age, training, mental capacity, criminal history and a variety of other determinants may be used in granting permits to carry concealed weapons.

What the state does not have the right to do is make gun possession so cumbersome that it essentially prevents people from exercising their right. That's what the current law does. It is time, indeed past time, for the General Assembly to enact a practical law on this issue, setting clear regulations on who can, and cannot, carry concealed guns.