Sununu Should Sign NH Gun Violence Prevention Bills
My op-ed as published in the Saturday, August 3rd edition of the Portsmouth Herald.
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By State Rep. David Meuse
Posted Aug 2, 2019 at 1:20 PM Updated Aug 2, 2019 at 1:20 PM
Governor Sununu will soon act on three bills passed during the recent legislative session. Each was designed to help minimize the risk of gun violence. While New Hampshire has been fortunate to avoid the plague of mass shootings that have ended thousands of lives and wounded or terrorized countless others, counting on weak laws and good fortune is bad governing and poor risk management strategy.
HB-109 would close a loophole in our firearms laws that allows guns to be advertised for sale and then sold in a private sale without a background check. The bill requires people publicly advertising a gun for sale or selling a firearm at a gun show to use the services of a licensed firearms dealer to conduct a background check on the seller. With millions of weapons now in circulation, conducting background checks only on buyers purchasing weapons in stores makes it easy for someone who shouldn’t have a weapon because of a protective order or a criminal record to get one.
HB-514 establishes a mandatory three-day waiting period before a firearm can be transferred to a buyer. While this is likely to be an annoyance and an inconvenience for some, it’s a potential lifesaver for those contemplating purchasing a firearm to commit suicide--a genuine problem in New Hampshire where 93% of the gun deaths in 2018 were suicides. The chronic underfunding our our mental health system means that we can’t exclusively depend on timely professional interventions alone. That’s why to make a dent in our gun suicide rate, it’s essential to address the issue of easy access to firearms by overwhelmed people in a time of personal crisis. While this bill won’t violate their right to purchase a gun, what it will do is give them three more days to reconsider a decision that not only could end their life, but permanently scar the lives of the people they love.
HB-564 allows local communities to enforce gun-free public school safety zones. When I spoke to parents after an ammunition clip was found by a student last fall at Little Harbour School in Portsmouth, most expressed shock that it is currently perfectly legal in our state to carry a firearm into a school or onto school grounds. While gun rights advocates maintain that allowing people on campus with firearms protects rather than endangers kids, the reality is that most teachers and parents would be hard-pressed to tell the difference between an armed parent coming to pick up the kids and an armed intruder coming to pick off the kids. So if this bill is vetoed, less responsible gun owners would be emboldened to carry guns onto school campuses, resulting in an increased risk of accidental shootings, more lockdowns, and more terrorized kids and teachers. Worth noting about the bill is it grants local school boards the power to make exceptions after holding a public hearing. This gives communities like Portsmouth additional flexibility about how we want to protect our kids.
The bottom line is that in this day and age, no single piece of legislation will prevent gun violence. But these three bills together represent a prudent shift in direction we can take to help minimize the risk of future tragedies. They are not , as some have bombastically framed them, “a declaration of war against the Second Amendment.
After Newtown, Parkland, Las Vegas, Aurora, and most recently Gilroy, they are a simple declaration that enough is enough.
Please contact Governor Chris Sununu at 603-271-2121 and ask him to sign these important and necessary bills into law.
State Rep. David Meuse is a Democrat representing Portsmouth in the New Hampshire House.