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From: http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070510/REPOSITORY/705100332
From: http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070510/REPOSITORY/705100332
High court hears gun permit case
Chief revoked license for concealed weapon
By DANIEL BARRICK
Monitor staff
May 10, 2007
On March 16, 2006, Edward Bleiler, a 71-year-old retired bulldozer salesman from Dover, dropped a loaded handgun on the desk of the Dover city attorney.
The gesture was meant to illustrate a story Bleiler was telling about his past run-ins with mobsters. Bleiler, a self-described loud talker who frequently curses to emphasize his points, said he did not intend to intimidate anyone by pulling the .38 caliber revolver from his pocket. Still, the incident spurred an investigation by the Dover police. Two weeks later, the chief revoked Bleiler's license to carry a concealed weapon, an act Bleiler calls unconstitutional.
"If they can do it to me, they can do it to anyone in the state, for no reason," he said.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday from Bleiler's attorney, Richard Lehmann, that his constitutional right to arm himself was violated when his concealed weapon permit was revoked. Lehmann also argued that the law defining the criteria for handing out and revoking those permits is too vague.
Christopher Boldt, an attorney for the city of Dover, said Bleiler's right to bear arms was not infringed when he lost his concealed-carry license, since it did not affect his ability to carry a gun in plain view. He also said that the Legislature has the authority to require permits for concealed weapons.
"The right to a concealed handgun is not a fundamental right," Boldt told the justices.
Bleiler's permit has since expired, which, as several justices indicated yesterday, may render his lawsuit moot. But beyond the specifics of Bleiler's gun license, the case raises two questions about New Hampshire gun laws:
• Does the right to bear arms, as described in the state constitution, include the right to carry a concealed weapon?
• Is the state law that allows officials to revoke a concealed weapon license for "just cause" so vague as to be unconstitutional?
New Hampshire's Constitution states that "all persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property and the state." Several of the justices yesterday raised doubts about whether that phrasing includes the absolute right to carry a concealed gun.
"He can have a gun as long as it's in plain view, right?" Justice Richard Galway asked Lehmann. "If he can't conceal a gun, how does that impinge on his right to have a gun? I'm not seeing it."
At this point, Bleiler leaned over to a friend and whispered, "We're going to lose."
Bleiler, who moved to Dover from Wellesley, Mass., in the mid-1990s, said the revocation of his carry license is one piece of a conspiracy by Dover city officials and the police to harass him. He said he's been tailed several times by police cars and has had the police park at the end of his driveway for no reason. He said the city went so far as to lower the speed limit on a street near his house as an excuse to pull him over for speeding. All of this was prompted, Bleiler said, by his history of criticizing city officials.
"Anyone who goes up against the city is harassed," Bleiler said.
He appeared in court yesterday with a baseball cap that read "S.O.B. Sweet Old Bleiler" and was accompanied by a small group of gun-rights activists. Penny Dean, an attorney for Gun Owners of New Hampshire, said police chiefs are given too much power in handing out concealed-carry permits. The system is open to abuse, she said, especially in situations such as Bleiler's, in which a citizen is an outspoken critic of the police.
"It's like they're God in their own town," Dean said.
According to documents filed in the Supreme Court, Dover Police Chief William Fenniman began an investigation into Bleiler's behavior after learning that he had placed a loaded gun on the city attorney's desk. Bleiler was known as a gadfly, but Fenniman determined that he had a history of "aggressive, paranoid behavior," including intimidating public officials and his neighbors.
When Bleiler appealed the revocation of his concealed-carry license to the Dover District Court in April 2006, the court agreed with Fenniman and said he was justified in revoking Bleiler's concealed-weapon license. (Fenniman has since retired as Dover's chief.)
John Donohue, a professor at Yale Law School who has written about gun laws, said many states have revised their laws in recent years to give police officials less discretion in handing out concealed-weapon permits.
"It used to be very uncommon in the United States that you had a right to carry a concealed handgun," Donohue said. "Over the last 20 years, there's been quite a shift."
And while recent court rulings have tended to interpret the right to bear arms as an individual right, "the contours of that individual right still needs to be mapped out," Donohue said.
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