Will New Hampshire Become A Constitutional Carry State?

My home state of New Hampshire has pretty liberal gun laws, where gun control is defined as hitting your target. Law abiding citizens can carry their sidearms openly without the need for a permit. To carry a concealed weapon requires a CCW permit. But that may change soon as two bills are making their way through the New Hampshire legislature that will remove the requirement for a permit to carry a concealed weapon. While both bills address concealed carry, only one stands a chance of making it through committee and out onto the House floor.

Republican leaders are urging House members to back House Bill 330. It would allow constitutional carry and extend gun-carrying rights to vehicles. But it specifically keeps guns out of courtrooms and courthouses.

Sunapee Police Chief David Cahill, president of the New Hampshire Police Chiefs Association, said his organization does not have a firm stand against constitutional carry. But he sees a benefit to concealed-weapons permits, and he has concerns about loaded weapons in vehicles.

Should HB330 become law, New Hampshire will become the fifth state that would allow what is called “constitutional carry”, meaning no CCW permit is required. The other four states allowing constitutional carry are Alaska, Arizona, Vermont, and Wyoming.

Is it possible New Hampshire might get a twofer this year? Between the bill to remove the requirement for a CCW permit and another to make the state the only Right-To-Work state in the Northeast, the Granite State could be sitting pretty.

Snowmageddon?

Listening to the local and national media, yet another “monster” snow storm is about to hammer the Northeast.

So what.

They're acting as if this has never happened before, as if it's something new no one here has ever experienced. (It might be if this were happening in July.) But we've had plenty of snowstorms equal to to or even greater than this one, and not all that long ago.

Perhaps we should clue the media in on this one: It's winter. It snows in winter. And up here in New England it snows a lot in the winter.

One thing I will admit is unusual for this coming storm – our operations manager decided our facility will be closed tomorrow (Wednesday) due to the heavy snowfall expected here. That's never happened before.

We've been closed because of the indirect effect of inclement weather (power was out due to a widespread ice storm that knocked out power to over 400,000 in New Hampshire alone) and because of a local power outage that we were told would last most of the day. But we've never been closed because of a snowstorm.

Not that being closed will absolve me of working. I still have a conference call and a web seminar tomorrow. At least I can do both in my pajamas!