Mississippi women — and a few confident men — may soon be sporting looks that kill.

That’s not a bad thing.

A new law allows Mississippi residents the right to carry a firearm in a purse, briefcase or other fully enclosed bags without obtaining a concealed carry permit.

That’s OK with me because I don’t plan on doing anything to provoke any pistol-packing mommas into brandishing their pistols toward me.

A couple of years ago, the state Legislature clarified an earlier law thus allowing what’s referred to as open carry — a firearm carried on a person in clear view.

At this point, perhaps, the state should seriously consider just going a step further and eliminating the need for concealed carry permits altogether.

If a person is allowed to have a firearm in his or her house, in his or her care and in his or her purse without a license, why not just extend the right to bear arms to ones’ back pocket or coat pocket as well?

Each time Mississippi or other states presumably lessen restrictions on firearms owners, a plethora of anti-gun nuts begin espousing untruths about firearms.

“We all know how dangerous guns are,” the critics will say.

The guns aren’t the problem; it’s the people holding the guns who are worrisome.

With rare mechanical failure exceptions, guns don’t just go off. They fire only when someone pulls the trigger — period.

As we saw in the late December murder of 16-year-old Jessie Taylor, restrictive gun laws do not prevent gun crimes. In Taylor’s death, potentially he and his assailants all had pistols and all were under the age of legal ownership.

But the existence of the law didn’t prevent them from carrying and brandishing guns.

Nearly at least once a week or more, we see a crime report from a local agency in which a person is arrested and charged with being a felon illegally in possession of a firearm.

Imagine that, criminals would break the law.

Perhaps if the criminals all knew each of their victims likely were carrying a pocket — or purse — full of deadly retaliation they might think twice before trying to pull off another crime.

One thing that does worry me about making gun laws more open is that, unfortunately, even law-abiding citizens can, without the proper training, be dangerous around firearms.

Accidents happen with even the best professionals. So, when you put a deadly weapon in the hands of someone who is far less skilled, the odds of an accident increase exponentially.

Mandatory gun safety training just makes sense.

Maybe the solution to so many guns on the streets in the hands of criminals is to pass two laws.

The first is simple: Any felon found to be guilty of possessing a firearm illegally and carrying it on their person concealed, must receive a mandatory life sentence. No slaps on the wrists allowed. The bulk of our state’s crimes seem to be at the hands of many of these repeat offenders. Perhaps cracking down on this one area could make a huge impact on curbing crime.

Second, lawmakers should consider making any firearms carrying outside of a person’s house illegal if the person hasn’t attended a state-sponsored gun safety class in the last five years.

Having all of Mississippi’s moms, wives, grandmas and man-purse-toting gentlemen armed is a fine idea.

However, Mississippi would truly be a better, safer place if the state could create a system to ensure the people carrying those guns knew basic gun handling safety practices first.

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.