You don't have to wade into any issue statements or policy briefs this election season to get a sense of how right-wing candidates feel about gun laws or proposals to return some sense of sanity to the debate about firearms.

You just have to pay attention to the fundraisers. Republican Congressional candidate Ilario Pantano will hold a shooting contest this weekend to raise money for his campaign. Attendees must bring their own guns and ammunition.

The Wilmington Star-News reports that the invitation to the event says "Pantano needs your help to fix Washington, so come on out to this fundraiser social for an afternoon of fun, food and guns."

It's not the first time that bullets and fundraising have come together this year. Republican Congressional candidate Tim D'Annunzio, who lost in a primary runoff in the 8th District, held a machine gun fundraiser earlier this election season.

Guns and people who pledge blind allegiance to the Second Amendment are not just a prominent part of Congressional campaigns. They are in state legislative races too and if the right-wing conservatives take over the General Assembly, expect the already gun friendly legislature to take even more troubling steps.

Even with Democrats in control, with a few exceptions, the pro-gun forces have largely had their way in Raleigh, expanding the number of places people can take their concealed weapons and squashing an attempt a few years ago to study why North Carolina was a leading source of guns used in crimes in other states.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence says the lack of a requirement for background checks when people buy firearms at a gun show is one big problem and they have urged lawmakers to require gun owners to tell law enforcement authorities when their guns are lost or stolen.

That proposal was defeated last after lawmakers claimed it was somehow an infringement on an individual's rights to ask them to tell the police when criminals may have their guns.

It's not an accident that the NRA held its annual convention in Charlotte this past May, where organizers described the attendees as Second Amendment fundamentalists.

That's an accurate description of some of the right-wingers running for the General Assembly this year too and it is a safe bet they won't be satisfied with the current gun laws in the state.

Candidates like Republican Glen Bradley, who is running for the House, are outspoken in their support of the Firearms Freedom Act, which supporters claim would mean that guns and ammunition made and sold in North Carolina would only be subject to state laws, not any federal restrictions.

It's based on the right-wing's claims about the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution that they rely on for most of their troubling states rights claims.

It may all sound far-fetched, and it would be in a typical political year with traditional candidates running. But this is not a typical year and candidates like Bradley, who openly endorses the John Birch Society, are anything but traditional.

They are extremists pure and simple. And they have more than a reasonable chance of getting elected and taking control of one or both chambers of the General Assembly.

There have probably always been Second Amendment fundamentalists in North Carolina. But there have never been Second Amendment fundamentalists in charge. And that's a scary prospect indeed.