Gun Violence Prevention in NH Since Parkland: Where Are We?
Valentine’s Day is normally a day to celebrate love, to wistfully remember high school crushes, and to make the very special person in your life feel even more special. But this year, Valentine’s Day also marked the first anniversary of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. In just over 5 minutes, 17 students and staff lay dead or mortally wounded. 17 others endured serious, but non-fatal wounds. In the aftermath, a nation mourned, reflected, and demanded change.
The Impact of Parkland on NH Gun Laws
In the months after the Parkland massacre, several states—including Florida, Kansas, Maryland, New Jersey, and Vermont—stood up for their citizens and enacted gun violence prevent legislation. Common sense public safety laws supported by a clear majority of Americans—like universal background checks, gun-free school zones, mandatory waiting periods for firearms purchases, and extreme risk protection orders that allow firearms to be removed from people presenting an immediate danger to others—were enacted in states across the country.
But not in New Hampshire.
In the days after Parkland, legislative efforts in Concord to allow local communities to ban firearms from public buildings ands school zones were disappointingly defeated. However, on the positive side of the ledger, bills that would have allowed firearms on public university campuses and K-12 school grounds also were defeated.
In one of the more bold failures of leadership in recent years, Governor Sununu, who enjoys a 93% rating from the NRA, refused to answer questions from the media about potential changes to state gun laws, preferring instead to talk about his plans to enhance school safety.
Fortunately the talk was later backed up by action as the governor approved $29 million in enhancements that meant new locks, central locking and monitoring systems, and other essential improvements in many of our schools to help protect our children. While the governor is to be commended for acting in this area, his lack of leadership when it came to supporting even the mildest and most sensible forms of gun violence prevention legislation was puzzling and disappointing. The disappointment continued when he appointed a School Safety Preparedness Taskforce that was specifically directed not to look into guns or to consider any changes in our laws that might lower the risk of gun violence. Eventually, the task force issued a report with 59 separate recommendations.
However, none addressed the elephant in the room—a national epidemic of gun violence which has largely spared New Hampshire, but where the law of averages, poor mental health services, and ready access to firearms means that eventually tragedy is likely to strike.
Like many New Hampshire residents, I feel that school safety improvements are prudent. But I also feel that sensible measures to reduce the risk of gun violence in our schools and our communities are equally essential. Put simply, school safety improvements are our children’s last line of defense. They should never be their only line of defense.
2019 Legislation
To reduce the risk of gun violence, four sets of legislation have been introduced in the New Hampshire House of Representatives.
Gun-Free School Zones. The 1990 Federal Gun-Free School Zones Act generally makes it illegal to carry a loaded firearm onto the grounds of a K-12 school. But a loophole in the law has made it unenforceable in New Hampshire. Two proposed bills received public hearings this week before the Education Committee that would close this loophole.
HB-101 (sponsored by Portsmouth Rep. Jackie Cali-Pitts) would allow individual communities to enact and enforce a local ordinance to ban guns on school grounds.
HB-564 would ban guns from K-12 school property state-wide.
I testified in support of both bills. Contrary to the constitutional arguments of some of the bill’s detractors, the Supreme Court’s 2008 Heller decision upholds prohibitions on firearms from schools and other public buildings. (My testimony is included at the bottom of this post).
Universal Background Checks. HB-109 would require background checks for all commercial sales and would close current loopholes for gun show and internet sales. This bill came before my committee this week in a spirited and contentious public hearing.
Seven Day Waiting Period. HB-514 would impose a 7-day waiting period between the purchase and delivery of a firearm. During this week’s public hearing, the sponsor offered an amendment to the bill eliminating ammunition from a waiting period. This bill is important because it would make the purchase of a firearm for an impulsive act like suicide or homicide more difficult.
Extreme Risk Protection Orders. On March 5th, the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee will hold a public hearing on HB-687. This bill would allow family members or law enforcement officers to petition for a court order to temporarily restrict access to firearms by individuals who pose an immediate risk to themselves or others. Since Parkland, similar bills have been enacted by states across the country despite vehement opposition from the gun industry and gun rights advocates.
The goal of these bills is simple: to decrease the likelihood of a tragedy from happening in our communities.
With hundreds of millions of weapons in circulation and lax laws regarding licensing and registration, no law by itself can actually prevent gun violence. However, it is well within our power to use our laws to reduce the risk.
We can and should pass these bills, not only to keep New Hampshire’s lower-than average record of gun fatalities intact. But also because lowering the risk of gun violence for our children and our fellow citizens is the right thing to do.
My Testimony on HB-101 and HB-564
I am here today to testify in support of HB-546 and HB-101.
Today there are millions of firearms in circulation in the United States. The sheer number of these weapons perpetuates gun violence that plagues our society by ensuring some will inevitably fall into the hands of people who would do harm to others. Until people like us come to our senses and realize that maybe we need each other more than we need our guns, there is no single action we can take, no single law we can pass, and no school security measure we can implement that would guarantee the safety of our children.
But what we do have within our power is for reasonable people to come together and take reasonable steps to reduce the possibility of gun violence happening in the one place it should never happen, but where it seems to happen all too often.
When it comes to school shootings, there’s simply no other way to put it—New Hampshire has been lucky. In 2018 alone there were 23 incidents across the country where 113 students and teachers lost their lives in school shootings. The fact that our state has been spared isn’t a sign that that things are fine the way they are and we need to do nothing. It’s simply a sign that the law of averages hasn’t caught up to our relatively small population.
Just after Thanksgiving last year, a young student at Little Harbour Elementary School in Portsmouth turned in an ammunition clip that had been carelessly and irresponsibly dropped by a parent who was dropping a child off at school. Later that day, the parent was allowed to pick up the clip at the Portsmouth Police Department. No charges were filed.
This surprised a group of parents at the school who had always assumed that the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 made it a criminal offense to carry firearms and ammunition onto school property. But when these parents did some digging into the law, they learned that unfortunately there is a loophole in the federal law allows firearms and ammunition to be brought onto school grounds. New Hampshire is one of a half a dozen states that to date have not acted to close this loophole.
HB-101 and HB-546 provide two ways to close this loophole and lower the risk of something unthinkable happening in our schools. Passing legislation like this won’t completely ensure the safety of our kids in a world where far too often guns are accessible to the wrong people. But what it will do is allow our state to take a small and reasonable step to reduce the risk of a tragedy from happening.
We’re the adults. Let’s do the job our kids and the people who love them expect us to do.