[gunsmith]

http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/08192003/news/45573.htm

Benson signs bills loosening gun laws

By Associated Press

CONCORD - The state has two new gun laws, which some groups are protesting.

Last week Gov. Craig Benson signed a bill making gun manufacturers, distributors and retailers immune from liability when their products are used by criminals. He signed another voiding local ordinances restricting gun possession on municipal property.

"I think both of these just make good common sense," Benson said, noting that gun manufacturers employ nearly 900 people in the state. The Million Mom March, an anti-gun lobbying group, said the laws increase the risk that innocent people will become victims.

"These bills say too bad, so sad, pound sand if someone is a victim of gun violence," said the group’s state coordinator, Laurel Redden. The group protested at the Statehouse when Benson signed the bills on Thursday. The state employees union opposes the municipal law. They warned that it could lead to more threats of violence against public officials.

The bill prevents towns and cities from banning guns in public buildings. It does still allow communities to ban hunting in town or city parks.

Governor recruiting 20,000 new residents?

CONCORD (AP) - Gov. Craig Benson has endorsed the Free State Project, a national group that is trying to get 20,000 advocates of limited government to move to a single state.

The group is currently voting on a target state. The idea is to get enough people to move to that state so they can influence public policy.

New Hampshire has been a front-runner. Other states being considered include Vermont, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Alaska, but no other governor has welcomed the group.

Results of the vote will be announced Oct. 1.

Amanda Phillips, New England representative for the group, said she attended a meeting with Benson in late June arranged by members of the state’s Libertarian Party.

She said Benson told them he probably had more in common with the Libertarians than with some of his Republican colleagues

[AZTOY]

Good job, New Hampshire:D

[Geech]

Wow, that Benson sounds like a good guy. Now they just need to move to a Vermont-style carry...

[Partisan Ranger]

Yes, yes, Million Mom Morons, I've no doubt that criminal cretins are at this very moment taking note of the changes in the gun laws and are plotting their criminal activities accordingly.

:scrutiny:

The core problem with most gun laws is the irrational assumption that criminals obey them. They don't. If they did, that NYC councilman would be alive to hug his children.

[Standing Wolf]

"I think both of these just make good common sense," Benson said...

Common sense isn't dead, after all, I guess.

[Airborne]

Benson, as it turns out, has been very good for New Hampshire so far, using his veto pen on the latest bloated state budget. His supporting gun rights and the Free State Project has been icing on the cake.

New Hampshire is under siege from Massachusetts transplants who have screwed their own state up so badly that it's practically unlivable, but now want to do the same up here. :cuss:

The governors support for the FSP project should help deter some of those that think NH will be easy to destroy with an income and/or sales tax. I hope Benson continues to show the rest of the country what good (read small) state government is all about.

Time will tell...

[Khornet]

right you are. That's the view from Wolfeboro, too.

I love the MMM response:"too bad, so sad, pound sand " if you're a victim of gun violence. As if that's not what MMM says to all of us when we need a gun to defend ourselves.

[TearsOfRage]

Now they just need to move to a Vermont-style carry...

Maybe someday.

Permits are already very easy to get, and there have been quite a few bills proposed recently to make them good for life, rather than for four years. None of them have quite passed, but it could happen. There has been a law passed recently forbidding the state from ever requiring photos or fingerprints from permit applicants.

[benewton]

All in all, we do have it good in NH, and, if we get the free state people, things could even be better.

But I wouldn't relax just yet, 'cause the libs haven't given up the fight just yet, as seen below:

For those of you not from this area, the Concord Monitor is our local version of the Boston Globe/New York times class of newspaper. ..







Editorial: Activist invasion?

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

Concord (NH) Monitor editorial

Benson's offer to help Libertarians seize state no surprise.


The Free State Project, an organization devoted to minimalist government, is working to convince 20,000 people of libertarian bent to move to a single state to take over its government. We have the sinking feeling New Hampshire is going to win this contest. If it does, credit will go to Gov. Craig Benson, who now appears at the top of the list of the group's most notable members.

The organization, which exists largely in cyberspace, is frustrated by the generally poor reception Libertarian Party candidates and their ideas have received at the polls. So it is asking the devout to vote with their feet and journey to a state small enough that, through hard work and the sheer force of their ideas, they will be able to bring about a low-tax, small-government utopia.

So far, according to the group's web site, some 5,000 people have pledged to relocate within five years to a state soon to be chosen by a vote of the membership. The project had already identified New Hampshire as perhaps its top takeover target when Benson met with its representatives and told them to "Come on up. We'd love to have you." The governor even agreed to become a formal friend of this quixotic effort.

Should they take Benson up on his offer, we suspect it will be New Hampshire that changes the "free staters," as they like to call themselves, and not the other way around. Take power, and like Benson, they will learn - in his case very slowly - that governing involves more than slogans and simplistic answers.

New Hampshire is at heart a libertarian state. Its people are less concerned with dictating how others live than in allowing all citizens to live pretty much as they see fit as long as they don't infringe on the rights of others. The state is attractive to government minimalists largely because, despite its monumental Legislature, it already operates a minimalist government.

New Hampshire has no general sales or income tax. It has a lower tax burden and fewer state employees per capita than almost anywhere else in the land. Its governor is perhaps the weakest in the nation. What government New Hampshire has, it needs.

The free staters, however, want much more. The group, which has adopted the porcupine as its totem animal, has some odd and prickly ideas.

According to its web site, it wants to grant communities the right to abolish public education. It seeks to repeal as many laws and regulations as possible, particularly those that place limits on business and the use of private property.

Its goal is "to cut the size and scope of government by two-thirds or more." Some members are not opposed to secession.

"What can activists for liberty do in a single state?" the group asks on its web site. "A great deal. They could repeal state taxes and wasteful state government programs. They could end collaboration between state and federal law enforcement officials in enforcing unconstitutional laws. They could roll back gun control and drug prohibition. They could end asset forfeiture and abuses of eminent domain. They could privatize utilities and end inefficient regulations and monopolies. Then they could use their political leverage to negotiate appropriate political autonomy for our state."

The Free State Project, like the governor who endorsed its naïve effort, frames its sales pitch in the language of freedom. Both seek a return to a simpler age. But what Benson and the free staters really seek is freedom from the responsibility to care for their neighbors and work for the common good.

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

[telomerase]

>Benson's offer to help Libertarians seize state no surprise.

So keeping the state's low taxes and good gun laws is "seizing" the state? And of course, no one can possibly be interested in helping their fellow man directly, so anything that lowers taxes hurts mankind. Ack.

Actually, FSP project people are trying to return to a more complex age, where individuals handled problems directly with their own resources. It's the pro-taxers that want to go back to the days of Hammurabi or Mao and have everything decided for them by a central authority. Can't get much simpler than that.

Thanks for posting the article. I think FSP will probably end up in NH, but obviously not everyone in NH likes the NH freedoms.

[AZRickD]

But what Benson and the free staters really seek is freedom from the responsibility to care for their neighbors and work for the common good.
That's not individuals looking out for others it is the government stealing money and giving it to someone else (for votes). What the writer is actually saying is that he thinks it is a good thing for government to take this money under force or threat of force (at gun point) to use it for the "common good" of some political constituency (voting block).

What this central planner doesn't realize is that freedom does benefit the common good.

I think New Hampshire might very well have moved to the head of the list for the Free Staters.

Rick
Live Free Or Die