Second Amendment fan says gun bills go too far

To the Editor:

I am strong supporter of the Second Amendment and I have written several opinion pieces on the subject for the Portsmouth Herald in an attempt to use factual data to dispel inaccurate opinions and fear mongering by administration officials and even the editors of this newspaper.

Both the Heller and McDonald Supreme Court decisions made it quite clear that the Second Amendment provides the basis for lawful gun ownership and applies to the states; they also said that, like the rest of the Bill of Rights, this right can be "reasonably" regulated — "reasonable" being the important word here.

When Senate Bill 88, essentially a castle doctrine piece of legislation, was passed by the N.H. Legislature and vetoed by the governor, I made the case using available data that all of the fears and fear mongering were factually baseless. It was "reasonable" to be able to have the Legislature add legal protection, the benefit of the doubt, when protecting yourself, your family or fellow citizens, and the Legislature overrode the governor's veto, much to my approval.

Now the Legislature has presented a series of sweeping bills that would remove even more restrictions in favor of the right to own and bear firearms, and this has produced much of the same reaction as the castle doctrine legislation did. Mr. Abramson responded to some recent opinion pieces and he was absolutely correct on the factual basis of his response. I also find myself in agreement with some of the new legislation and astounded at the political stupidity of others.

You see, my politics incorporates pragmatism as well, something this Legislature knows nothing about, but should have been predictable to all of us and manifested as a massive shift to the far right of reason in response to the foolishness of the former, Democratically led, Legislature.

I believe the Republican Legislature may be materially correct, but they are making huge miscalculations about who we are.

They may have a majority — even a veto-proof majority, but they are poking a stick in their fellow citizens' eyes that won't be forgotten. HB 334, if passed, would allow law-abiding citizens to carry firearms on all publicly owned property. At its core, I agree with this legislation, especially the component that would allow firearms on New Hampshire campuses. All campuses are essentially a free-fire zone for criminal activities, and university rules should not be allowed to prevent those who are permitted to own and carry a firearm for protection from doing so.

Not withstanding Mr. Patton's "hallow ground" theory, I have been exposed to the possibility of an armed, presumed unstable, student on a New Hampshire campus and university officials were more concerned with the protection of the university from a public relations viewpoint than they were concerned about the safety of their students, staff or faculty. They had to be "convinced" that, if we couldn't protect ourselves from this potential threat, then a police presence was required, and they finally acquiesced to that.

HB 194 would remove restrictions on having loaded long rifles and shotguns in motor vehicles. For the life of me, I would love to hear the reason for this. These weapons would not be preferred in a close-quartered car situation, where protection might be required, and while I suspect that the incident of accidental firearm discharge will be low as a result, I don't believe it will be zero. It's unnecessary and shines a bad light on other important legislative efforts, as described above, to eliminate restrictions to Second Amendment rights.

HB 536-N is also not needed, although I believe in the premise that we do not need a "license" to exercise a right. But it is "reasonable" to have a procedure to make sure as many people as possible who shouldn't have firearms do not have the means to obtain them, and the permitting process was another process to make sure that doesn't happen.

Again, notwithstanding the experience of other states that do not require permits, and their excellent records showing that their citizens have acted responsibly, was this legislation really needed? In a state that is known as a "shall issue" state, we have had few problems with people being able to get a concealed-carry permit. The problem is that those who have been denied arbitrarily have had few options for redress. The better legislation would have been to set up a review board for these cases to adjudicate them more fairly and leave the permit process, which includes a background check, in place.

I will likely catch some you-know-what for this, but I think this is "reasonable" and not a slippery slope to more onerous restrictions that I would object to. So, someday the opposing party will be in power and there will be calls to repeal many of these laws. I just hope, against reason and politics, that they won't be poking a stick in our eyes as well.

Michael Lesser

Newmarket

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Second Amendment fan says gun bills go too far