Virginia Tech: Not a Reason for More Gun Laws

The recent events at Virginia Tech have horrified the nation. The day saw 32 students murdered in cold blood. Another 21 students were wounded in this heinous act. Unfortunately, many gun control advocates are using this rampage as a reason to have more laws preventing Joe-citizen from possessing a weapon for self defense.

The Virginia Assembly had considered a law that would allow law-abiding individuals to carry weapons on the campuses of state schools, which would include Virginia Tech. The bill was killed and the powers-that-be at Virginia Tech praised the defeat: "I'm sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly's actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus."

Maybe they all felt safe, but in reality they were not any safer. On the contrary, everyone on the campus was even more vulnerable to an attack like the one that happened earlier this week. Just because the school says "no guns" doesn't mean that a criminal person will not bring a gun.

Dr. John Lott, author of More Guns, Less Crime, is the author of the largest study of gun control laws ever. He concluded that mass public shooting almost never occur in areas with more lax gun laws.

A perfect example of how guns save lives is available right here in New Hampshire. A disgruntled club patron, who was ejected from the club, returned with a pistol. He was ready to shoot the bouncers that threw him out. After the man shot a few rounds, an innocent bystander pulled out his concealed handgun and shot the criminal twice. If it weren't for that man with a gun, there could have been more people shot.

If students and faculty were allowed to defend themselves with weapons, maybe this whole tragedy could have been avoided. But we will never know.

Could the Court Be Wrong?

Here is the text of a letter to the editor that I sent out today. I have many more constitutional arguments to make, but alas, I can only write so much for a letter to the editor.

Constitutional Questions

Why is the legislature rushing along to define and cost an ‘adequate’ education? Why are they so willing to do the bidding of an unelected five-member court?

The supreme judicial court based its Claremont education funding decisions primarily on Part II, Article 83 of the New Hampshire constitution, which says in the relevant part: “it shall be the duty of the legislators and magistrates, in all future periods of this government, to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries and public schools, [and] to encourage private and public institutions…”

Do any of you understand how that article “imposes a duty on the State to provide a constitutionally adequate education to every educable child and to guarantee adequate funding”?

The court said in the second Claremont decision that it is the “duty of the legislature to ‘cherish’” public schools. But doesn’t Article 83 say it is the duty of legislators and magistrates, and not the duty of the legislature as a whole, to ‘cherish’ public schools? One might say it is merely semantics. Well, why do the words ‘legislature’ and ‘general court’ (synonym for legislature) appear a combined 78 times in the constitution, while the word ‘legislator’ appears but once (in Article 83). I highly doubt the framers of this wonderful document would change that one word if it meant the same thing as the others.

And why does the court only mention public schools? The constitution also includes ‘seminaries’ and ‘private…institutions’. Of course, that would not help them increase the size of our state government, so they just left that part out.

Apparently there remain some unanswered questions. Please contact your legislators (notice I didn’t say legislature) and ask them to answer those questions. And maybe ask them why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ranks New Hampshire #3 in the entire nation for quality of education, while the area that spends the most per pupil (Washington D.C.) is dead last in rankings. Could local control and fiscal responsibility have anything to do with it? If they can not give you straight answers, ask them if they still really support the court’s unconstitutional power grab.

No Real ID in New Hampshire

The New Hampshire House voted to pass HB 685 on Thursday. The bill prohibits the New Hampshire government from participating in the federal Real ID program. Real ID would create a de facto national identification card out of our state driver's licenses.

New Hampshire kicked off a wave of dissent across the country when the House voted to ban Real ID last year. The Senate, however, killed the bill.

The fight has come back even stronger this year; 25 other states have pending legislation denouncing Real ID and the general court of New Hampshire does not want to be left out on the party it started. The the same bill passed the House by a narrow margin last year. This year it passed by a near-unanimous vote of 268-8.

I hope you will contact your Senator and tell them you don't want the federal government to create a national ID card.

In Libertate,
Tyler