Gun Rights Notches Big Win in New Hampshire

Universal background checks and waiting periods are a big part of every anti-gun wish list in every state that doesn’t have such things already. Gun control advocates want to complicate the process of buying a gun as much as they think they get away with and these two proposals are a big chunk of that goal.

New Hampshire is one of the many states without them.

Unfortunately for folks there, they have Massholes who move to New Hampshire because living in their old state has become untenable, then proceed to vote for the exact same laws that created the environment they ran away from. That means it’s no longer a sure thing that the state with “Live Free or Die” on its license plates holds to that motto.

But earlier this week, we saw that all is far from lost as gun rights garnered a significant win.

The New Hampshire House is once again rejecting expanded background checks and a 72-hour waiting period on firearm sales.

The Republican majority says this is an issue of freedom, while Democrats say they aren’t giving up their fight for stricter laws.

Democrats made their push on the House floor Thursday to support House Bill 56, which would require a background check for all private gun sales with limited exceptions and enforce a three-day waiting period for transfer of a firearm after a sale.

…

Suicide prevention was a major component of the arguments made for the bill, but Republicans tried to turn that issue around on Democrats in the debate.

“We keep on being told this is about suicide prevention, but the very people that are bringing us this bill saying it is about suicide prevention are voting for an assisted suicide bill,” said state Rep. Jennifer Rhodes, R-Winchester. “Make that make sense.”

You know, that’s a valid point.

If they’re so anti-suicide, why are they trying to make it legal for someone to help someone else kill themselves? That just seems a little at odds, wouldn’t you say?

Regardless, universal background checks and waiting periods don’t reduce crime, and there really aren’t studies that show it prevents suicides. There are that claim it reduces gun suicides, but no one seems interested in looking at suicides as a whole after these laws are passed. Funny, that.

Gun rights advocates in New Hampshire put up a fight on this one and they won. That’s fantastic news.

Especially since I’m pretty sure that if the courts would honestly apply Bruen’s history, text, and tradition standards, neither of these measures would survive a constitutional challenge in the first place. There’s no analog for either of these historically, after all.

Unfortunately, they’re not quite that easy to get rid of just now, so the best way to go forward is to defeat them in the legislature, which just happened.

Make no mistake, though. They’ll keep coming back until folks in the state start voting out the legislators who keep trying to infringe on people’s rights. Then, maybe, someone will get the hint. Until then, you have to keep fighting.