When New Hampshire’s legislative shenanigans play as cruelty

Earlier this month, Gov. Kelly Ayotte announced she had signed a batch of more than two dozen bills. While there were a few in there that received dedicated media coverage — a change to the state primary and new limits on carbon sequestration programs among them — most of the bills would be best described as tweaks to existing statute. House Bill 1037, to extend and expand the state’s commission to study OHRV use, is one such freshly minted law, as is the bipartisan Senate Bill 426, to repeal the permissible fireworks advisory board.

That’s how it is in every session. While not every incremental change is considered benign by all, the intent is often refinement, for better or worse, rather than the furtherance of a political agenda. Where core party ideology is present, however, you can be sure that parliamentary shenanigans will follow.

So you might see stunts like an unpopular abortion ban tacked on as a line item in the enormous budget trailer bill (in 2021) or an effort to fast-track open enrollment without a public hearing (in early 2026). And, as we learned last week, Republican lawmakers are capable of going to great procedural pains to please and enrich certain special interests, such as American gun manufacturers and their insatiable lobby.

If there was an award this session for a much-publicized bill that best represents unwanted and unneeded legislation, “campus carry” would be as strong a candidate as any. The gist of House Bill 1793 seems to be that what New Hampshire public colleges and universities need more than anything is for the student body to be able to fully exercise their Second Amendment rights on campus without fear of sanction from academic busybodies. House Republicans were almost unanimous in their agreement on the importance of the bill, with only three representatives peeling off from the majority to join all Democrats. But for whatever reason, Senate Republicans were circumspect and instead passed a dialed-back version of HB 1793 that bestowed concealed possession rights to faculty only and proposed a study committee for the rest. 

The move did not go over well in the House.

Should you ever find yourself in need of an example of pure zealotry, here’s a brief description of what happened next. House Republicans were so incensed by the changes made by their Senate colleagues that they attempted to attach the original campus carry provisions to an unrelated bill. It wasn’t just any unrelated bill, either, but one of the most popular and bipartisan of the session: Senate Bill 408, to require health insurers to provide coverage for adult prosthetics.

That’s a pretty callous amendment, isn’t it — to elevate the grim wishes of the NRA and its ilk over the needs of neighbors with unique physical challenges? Well, 159 House Republicans sure didn’t see it that way — and their stunt would have been successful if not for the 22 members of their caucus who balked. Now, House and Senate negotiators will try to hash out an agreement on a bill that never should have been filed.

That campus carry was Republicans’ big swing on higher education this session is telling in its own right. No state offers less funding to its colleges and universities than New Hampshire, and our average in-state tuition for four-year public institutions is second only to Vermont. But, sure, let’s make sure the kids are good and armed before we do anything to ease their present and future financial burdens.

Also, who outside of the gun lobby is even asking for campus carry?

During a March Q&A session in Durham with bill sponsor Rep. Sam Farrington, student journalist Delaney Nickerson of The New Hampshire reported that only four men raised their hands when the audience was asked, “How many of you do not feel safe on campus?”

The same questioner, local resident Michael Behrendt, later said: “If I was here with my child on a campus tour and I see students with a gun, I’d say to my tour guide, ‘What’s the story here?’ They’d say the state passed a law last year — open carry. I would say, forget it. We are not coming here.”

He’s right, and I believe he speaks for the vast majority of college parents. It is a deeply misguided bill in general, as law enforcement officials in college towns will tell you, and an absolute head-scratcher in one of the safest states in one of the safest regions in the United States. And, no, despite the fanciful logic of the pro-gun crowd our safety ranking is not a result of our permissive gun laws. New Hampshire does indeed get an F on the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence scorecard, but Massachusetts gets an A, Vermont a B-minus, and Maine a C-plus — and all are right there with us at the top of the safety list.

And then there’s this other consideration, from Pew Research: According to the latest available statistics, 44,000 people died of gun-related injuries in the United States in 2024 and 62% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides. 

The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services reports that there were 98 homicides total between 2020 and 2024 in the state compared with 1,150 suicides during that same period. Nationally, 57% of suicides involve a gun, Pew reports, and in New Hampshire suicide was the ninth leading cause of death between 2020 and 2024.

So remind me again: What problem is it that we’re trying to solve with campus carry?

A legislature that’s truly interested in addressing the state’s problems must be a dynamic legislature. That is, responsive to the emergent needs of the people and unbound by purely ideological pursuits that are untethered from reality. So I’ll say it again: Gun fanatics are so obsessed with a push that began when George W. Bush was president that they would potentially sacrifice the present well-being of constituents with disabilities for a bill that serves a concept rather than living people. 

That’s not just legislative malpractice, it’s inhumanity.