MORE GUN FREEDOM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

GUN FREEDOM IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

CONCORD —
Competing bills have been filed to eliminate
New Hampshire's license requirement for
carrying concealed weapons, dividing the pro-gun community.

Some are lining up behind state Rep. J.R. Hoell, a Dunbarton
Republican, and others behind state Rep. Jennifer Coffey,
a Republican from Andover.

Both of their bills allow anyone to carry a firearm openly
or concealed, loaded or unloaded, with or without a license.

Coffey's bill also removes the requirement that nonresidents
obtain a license to possess a firearm while in New Hampshire.

House Speaker William O'Brien, House Republican Leader D.J.
Bettencourt, Senate Republican Leader Jeb Bradley and others
who back Coffey's bill said it is not as extreme as Hoell's bill.

Hoell's bill would establish a criminal penalty for interfering
with someone's right to carry and would repeal a prohibition
against citizens carrying a gun in a courthouse.

The bill includes a definition of a suitable person eligible
for what would become an optional license needed
to carry in other states. For example, a suitable person
could not be a felon.

Hoell said he wants judges and others to be allowed
to carry firearms in courthouses to defend themselves.

"Judges should be allowed to carry at work," he said.


He said he included the penalty because some local officials
responsible for issuing licenses have been slow to issue them
or not issued them at all.