Cease fire: No new gun laws needed
EDITORIAL
January 12. 2018 12:15AM
Water is wet. The sun rises in the East. The New Hampshire Legislature is debating new gun laws.
A year after passing Constitutional Carry, gun rights groups are now pushing the state to overrule local and campus restrictions on firearms.
And of course, gun grabbers are back trying to prevent law-abiding gun owners from protecting themselves and their families.
The gun control bill would carve out exemptions to Constitutional Carry, prohibiting the open carry of a firearm in any number of public places. This would gut last year’s long-overdue reform, which lets people who may legally possess a firearm carry it without obtaining a permission slip from the police department.
Sponsor Delmar Burridge, D-Keene, would even bar people who have a carry permit from exercising their constitutional rights in places Burridge thinks should be gun-free.
The pro-gun bills would prevent local officials from restricting firearms on public property, such as Milford selectmen barring target shooting on town land.
Gun-free zones are often counterproductive, but we would be reluctant to have the Legislature insert its judgment for that of local governments, even when we disagree. Local decisions on the use of town property are not regulations on firearms, which are reserved to the state.
We see no need to change New Hampshire’s gun laws in 2018.
