On Tuesday, a little over a week after a crazed gunman shot down 32 people at Virginia Tech University, hundreds of gun-rights advocates rallied at the Capitol in Harrisburg. They supported loosening the current less-than-onerous restrictions on gun owners and denounced a gun-control bill that everybody knows has little or no chance of passing.

To those Pennsylvanians who thought the massacre might inspire some thoughtfulness about the Second Amendment right to bear arms, the unhappily timed event in Harrisburg had a resounding message: Forget it.

Blind to reason and moderation, this group was also deaf to decency.

According to The Associated Press, two participants held up a sign that said a Philadelphia legislator "should be hung from the tree of liberty for treasonous acts against the constitution." The alleged treason was a stillborn attempt by Rep. Angel Cruz, a Democrat of Puerto Rican descent, to pass a bill in reaction to Philadelphia's mounting death toll from gun-related violence. He would require gun registration, fingerprinting of owners and a $10-a-gun annual fee. The bill goes too far, but it is not treason.

It takes a special pair of tin ears to suggest a lynching for someone in a minority group or, for that matter, anyone. Yes, the words can be understood as a mangled figure of speech borrowed from Thomas Jefferson's famous quote: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." But this was still stupid.

The chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, Rep. Thaddeus Kirkland, denounced the banner as "an act of racism" and "a terroristic threat on the life of a colleague." For his part, Rep. Cruz asked Capitol Police to determine whether laws were broken.

Such a reaction was understandable, but in truth this probably wasn't a serious threat. More likely, it was the hyperbole of unrealistic and unserious people -- extremists who think that the Second Amendment is absolute and trumps all other rights and who further believe that liberty in these United States is guaranteed only by people bristling with guns.

In fact, those who subscribe to this paranoid fever may have done the Legislature a favor by pushing their extremism into the face of its members. Too many lawmakers take a perverted pride in divorcing the right of gun ownership from any sense of public responsibility -- as if gun owners are free to act like an unregulated militia, in defiance of the actual words of the Second Amendment.

One of these is Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, the Republican from Cranberry, one of the organizers of the rally and the sponsor of a package of irresponsible pro-gun bills. To his credit, Mr. Metcalfe later condemned the banner as "not appropriate" on the floor of the House. But that is what you get when you cater to extremists.