New Hampshire State Senator Donovan Fenton, a Democrat from Keene, is encouraging support for a bill that would greatly restrict who can have a gun in a school.
The bill would require people to have special consent from the school and does not restrict law enforcement from carrying a gun.
There is a broader issue I have noticed, especially with conservatives regarding gun accessibility that I just cannot wrap my head around. Conservatives love to cheerlead rhetorically for an unfettered and completely unhindered ability to own guns, believing there should be no regulation because that infringes on their rights; This is a liberal problem as well. The resistance liberal types seem to fear guns as though they were a boogie man, then think they should be regulated to the high heavens.
I feel both sides of the aisle seem to forget about the Sen. Fentons of the world. People who either own guns or do not mind guns yet can acknowledge that there are some limitations on the Second Amendment.
If we follow the conservative approach, which we have been for a while now, to its logical conclusion; Where does that leave us? A wild west free-for-all where everybody has a gun, even people who would not normally have one such as violent felons. These law-and-order conservative types seem to forget that you cannot have it both ways. How does one even take this rhetoric seriously anymore?
The same goes for liberal folks as well. Some would like to recreate this messy patchwork of regulations as far as the eye can see and some are just as bad as conservatives. How do liberals intend to sway people on gun reform when it is toothless? Their best proposals are red flag laws and they struggle to pass those.
I am very supportive of the State Senate bill that would limit guns in schools. It is certainly an improvement on our current problem with guns in schools across the country and very proactive on the part of N.H. considering this is a limited issue in the state. However, I just struggle with the gun debate as a whole. While there are meaningful gun reforms that should be passed, I strongly believe there are deeper societal issues regarding gun violence and gun crimes that we just cannot solve with the stroke of a pen.
Timothy Fitzpatrick can be contacted at
tfitzpatrick@kscequinox.com
