Lebanon
Educators argue the bill, HB 1749, would allow absolutely anyone to carry a gun into a school, making it more difficult to protect children.
Gun advocates contend the legislation will help restore constitutional rights.
“We can’t have a School Board start suddenly saying that, ‘This is going to be a gun-free zone’ and then carry that (rule) to any activity where those students are,’ ” said Rep. J.R. Hoell, R-Dunbarton, the bill’s primary sponsor, during a legislative hearing last week.
The state already has an existing firearms law, which states the Legislature has sole responsibility for regulating guns and knives. Hoell contends many municipalities and school districts, including in Lebanon, have ignored the law.
In his bill, Hoell singles out the Lebanon School Board for “attempting to ban firearms in or on school property and at school events that take place on non-school property.”
The legislator also calls out the Lebanon Police Department, saying it “has pledged to enforce the illegal gun ban” enacted by the school board.
If passed, Hoell’s bill would institute a $5,000 penalty for elected officials who have been found by a judge to have violated the law. The legislation also prohibits municipalities and school districts from using public funds to “defend or reimburse the unlawful conduct” of those officials.
The state’s current firearms law has no penalties attached for those taken to court and ruled to be in violation.
The bill is needed to protect gun owners who might be unjustly fined or arrested for violating policies that ban firearms, Hoell said, according to a recording of the House Municipal and County Government Committee hearing. It also prevents public officials from abusing their power, he added.
Schools leaders say they have a mandate to protect children in their care.
“The responsibility of the Lebanon School District and the superintendent is first and foremost to provide students with safe schools,” Lebanon Superintendent Joanne Roberts said in an email last week.
The city’s School Board voted in October to clarify its existing weapons policy by adding “school buildings” to a list of locations where firearms are prohibited.
Under the policy, weapons are banned from “school property, in school vehicles or at school-sponsored activities” in the city. The rule applies to members of the public, school employees and students alike.
Roberts said the school district has had similar policies on the books since at least 1990, when the Gun-free School Zones Act was established. That federal law bans guns on school property, but municipal police don’t have the authority to enforce it, according to guidance from the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.
“Our policy is similar to the policies of the majority of school districts across the state and throughout the country,” Roberts said.
Several Upper Valley school districts either revised or adopted new firearm policies after state Rep. David Binford, R-Bath, arrived at a Rivendell Academy playoff basketball game last spring with a holstered handgun.
Binford was asked by district officials to provide security at the game, however, they didn’t expect he would do so carrying a firearm.
In response to the subsequent controversy, the Rivendell School Board voted in June to adopt a policy stating only uniformed police can provide security at events. The Dresden School District adopted a prohibition on firearms that month, and the Claremont and Mascoma Valley Regional school boards have similar bans on their books.
In an email, Rivendell Dean of Students Michael Galli said the House bill appears to be an attempt by pro-gun legislators to “take pre-emptive action against a growing movement questioning why the State of New Hampshire allows members of the public to bring a deadly weapon into a place that houses its most vulnerable population, children attending school.”
Galli pointed out that many have updated their security protocols in the wake of multiple school shootings, he said, and require any visitors to be granted access only through a secure door.
“What person in their right mind is going to ‘buzz in’ an unknown person with a big iron on his hip?” Galli asked.
“Why would an adult need to bring a loaded gun into a school in the first place? Fear of death by a thousand paper cuts from a second-grader wielding a notebook? Being stabbed in the jugular by a fourth-grader armed with a number two pencil? Having one’s eyes impaled by an ingenuitive sixth-grader holding a modified stapler?”
Lebanon Police Chief Richard Mello also pushed back against the Hoell’s accusation that his department would enforce an “illegal gun ban.” He called the language a “mischaracterization” of his position, in an email last week.
Rather than enforcing school policies, he said, police assists school officials with removing someone who was asked to leave school grounds for any reason.
“We handle ‘unwanted party’ situations quite frequently and that is our approach,” Mello said in the email.
The House bill currently has 10 Republican sponsors, and is also supported by the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of New Hampshire.
However, Republican Gov. Sununu has said he is not in favor of any additional gun legislation this session, including the House bill.
“Right now I think we don’t need any additional gun restrictions or gun laws on the books. I’m pretty happy where they are and I think the people of New Hampshire are pretty happy where they are,” he told the New Hampshire Union Leader last week.
The legislation has drawn the ire of municipal officials from across New Hampshire, including those in the town of Milford, which the legislation’s authors accused of banning “target shooting on town land.”
Milford Selectboard member Mark Fougere, who also works as a town planner, called the bill’s language “misleading” and “factually inaccurate” during last week’s hearing, saying the town restricted shooting on a few hundred acres of town-owned property.
Shooting is still permitted on several hundred acres elsewhere, he pointed out.
Representatives of Londonderry, Allenstown, the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police and New Hampshire Municipal Association also spoke against the bill.
“The issue here from our perspective is not about controlling guns but rather who has the authority to control and manage town-owned property,” said Judy Silva, executive director of the Municipal Association during the hearing.
Under state law, towns and cities have the authority to “manage all real property owned by the town and to regulate its use” unless the land is governed by other laws.
New Hampshire’s existing firearms laws allow municipalities to establish zoning laws for weapons businesses; that exemption would be removed as part of the House bill.
“If a town can say no to camping in a town forest, no to hiking in a watershed area because it may contaminate the property, no to growing potatoes on the town common, why cannot towns say ‘no shooting guns on town property?’ ” Silva asked the House committee. “Why is that not a reasonable limitation for a town to enact?”
The judiciary has also expressed concerns about the bill, including how it could affect how guns in the court room are regulated.
“There’s been case law that says the judicial branch is entirely responsible for what happens in the court room,” said Howard Zibel, the legislative liaison for the state courts. “Control of the court room is a matter for a judge.”
An amendment being proposed by the bills sponsors would exempt the courts from the legislation. However, the House committee isn’t required to accept those changes.
Rep. Timothy Josephson, D-Canaan, said on Sunday that he likely won’t be voting for the bill, mainly because it “infringes on local elected officials’ ability to be able to perform their jobs.”
Many of those officials are volunteers and shouldn’t be penalized for enacting regulations in good faith, said Josephson, a member of the Municipal and County Government Committee and vice chairman of the Mascoma Valley Regional School Board.
“It is really about local control versus state control,” he said. “That’s really mostly what this is about.”
A committee vote on the legislation hasn’t been scheduled yet. It would then have to survive a full vote on the House floor before going to the Senate.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamer ato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.