In vetoing earlier this month three gun safety measures passed by the Legislature, Gov. Chris Sununu pronounced New Hampshire one of the safest states in the nation and touted its long and proud “tradition of responsible firearm stewardship.”
Governor, tell that to the scores of Claremont residents who had to shelter in place last week during an armed standoff at a house on Hanover Street in which a man barricaded inside allegedly fired hundreds of rounds over several hours before eventually surrendering. Or to the family of a 2-year-old Newport girl who was wounded in the leg in April when their downstairs neighbor allegedly discharged a shotgun blast into his ceiling. Or to the Providence College student visiting a friend at Dartmouth who was injured when struck by a random shot fired from a car into a group of people near the campus last November.
As staff writer Jordan Cuddemi reported in the Sunday Valley News, the town of Newport alone has been the scene of five separate shootings in the past eight months in which four people were wounded and one killed. Besides the shotgun blast in the apartment, the circumstances have included a drug deal gone bad, a dispute over a shared driveway and a woman fleeing gunshots allegedly fired by a man for whom she was providing care. The fatality occurred, authorities say, when a man suffering from dementia shot and killed his wife.
Newport Town Manager Hunter Rieseberg, Selectboard Chairman Jeffrey Kessler and Police Chief Jim Burroughs aver that there is no cause for public alarm over this spate of gun violence as none of the shootings were random and they were not linked in any way. This rosy optimism suggests that the town must have engaged Pollyanna as a public safety consultant. The reality is that there is every reason to be alarmed, and that, fairly or unfairly, Newport’s image is taking a hit. At the very least, town officials should begin a public dialogue about gun safety and the need to resolve disagreements without resorting to violence.
Newport is not alone, of course. In addition to the Hanover shooting, a road-rage incident on Route 4 in Grafton in April culminated in gunfire that wounded one of the drivers. In late December, two houses on Chestnut Street in Claremont were struck by random gunfire. In Concord itself, armed counter-protesters showed up at a rally earlier this month in a naked attempt to intimidate those urging Sununu to sign the gun control bills he eventually vetoed.
The three bills would have established a three-day waiting period for firearm sales; instituted a statewide system of background checks; and created gun-free zones around schools. The case for the last is particularly compelling, especially given that the state’s concealed-carry licensing system was repealed, with Sununu’s enthusiastic support, in 2017. Now there is no way for school personnel to know if adults are armed when they enter school property.
As one small step toward reviving responsible firearm stewardship, we urge the Legislature to reinstitute a concealed-carry licensing system. Such a system should include a thorough background check and make obtaining a license contingent on successful completion of a firearms safety course, including qualifying on the range and classroom instruction on the rights and responsibilities of carrying a weapon and using it in self-defense. And completing that course should be required with each license renewal, at, say, four-year intervals.
Reasonable people can disagree about what the Second Amendment guarantees in terms of the individual right to gun ownership, but there’s no good argument for letting people carry a concealed weapon who aren’t trained to do so responsibly.