A new proposed bill touches on the Right to Know Law—a law that could test the pros and cons of what type of information people may have the right to inform themselves of.
The Right to Know Law is a state law in New Hampshire which gives people the right to knowledge, as it gives people freedom to gather certain information.
The proposed bill will allow journalists to perform their jobs of accessing important information in order to help inform the general public.
Keene State College Journalism Professor and gun owner, Mark Timney, commented on the development of the bill and said, “I believe this [bill] is in response to journalists behaving irresponsibly and publishing records and lists with no legitimate reason.” House Bill 1379, proposed by a bi-partisan group from the N.H. House of Representatives, is a piece of legislation that would amend the current N.H. Right to Know Law in order to exempt firearm records from the information allowed to be viewed.
N.H. Representative Andrew White, a sponsor for the bill said, “This bill says that the people who hold a concealed carry license would not be subject to the Right to Know Law. We’re seeing that these [firearms records] are being published, and it’s a privacy concern.”
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N.H. Senator Sharon Carson, another sponsor of the Bill, after multiple phone calls, declined to comment.
Carson’s co-sponsor, Senator David Watters, however, commented, “I think the fear here is that this information will be used to identify who owns firearms. These people could also be targets for burglary.”
President and Chief Operating Officer of The Keene Sentinel, Terrence Williams explained the Right to Know Law. Terrence explained, “It is a law that we actively use to pry information out of the government.”
Being a journalist, Williams stated there are obvious situations where certain information should not be published.
Ultimately, Williams said this bill was not justified.
“I have a pretty low tolerance for exemptions to the Right to Know Law. This is just a continuation of a trend to weaken the law,” he explained.
With an ethical split such as this one, the two sides of the argument over the right to know are apparent.
Some journalists have expressed the need of the Right to Know law, but some gun owners have stated they don’t want their records published because of privacy concerns.
While individual privacy is not stated in the Constitution outright, the Fourth Amendment does state that no one can be searched by the government or police without probable cause. This means that there is no federal law on what specific privacy United States citizens are entitled to have.
Only state laws created, submitted and then voted on are able to define certain boundaries.
Journalism, however, is the only career specifically protected by the Constitution.
The First Amendment states that individual Americans have freedom of speech, but the amendment also prohibits any law that would infringe the press.
Timney explained that in the past, newspapers and other media outlets have published lists of gun owners and said, “While I like open records, if you’re going to publish anything, there has to be a reason for it. You’ve told the public nothing — unless it serves a purpose.”
With the fears of gun-related crimes on the rise, Timney said, “Here’s a factoid: concealed carry holders are three times less likely to commit a crime than a person without one, and twice less likely than an officer of the law.”
Larry Phillips, a member of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee of New Hampshire, is one of the people who will vote on whether or not this bill will pass.
Phillips stated he ultimately would favor the bill.
“I have mixed reactions,” he said, “However, I would be inclined to remove firearms from the right to know.”
Senator Watters added, “There is a difficult balance to achieve here.”
Eric Jedd can be contacted at ejedd@keene-equinox.com