From Before It’s News
If signed into law, New Hampshire will join ranks with the ‘Constitutional carry’ states of Vermont, Alaska, Arizona, Wyoming, and Arkansas, having passed Senate Bill 118 (SB116) on FEB-12, “repealing the license requirement for carrying a concealed pistol or revolver”, and will be a win for 2nd Amendment advocates and all law abiding citizens of the state and elsewhere.
New Hampshire law already allows anyone (resident or non-resident) to openly carry a loaded firearm without a license, and although NH is a ‘shall issue’ state (for a concealed carry license), the changes made within SB116 will remove that requirement entirely.
Most New Hampshire state senators logically recognized the problem with the existing concealed carry law which essentially makes criminals out of anyone who is legally openly carrying a firearm while putting on a jacket (for example) – it gets cold in NH .
Sponsor of the bill, Senate Majority Leader Jeb Bradley (R) of Wolfeboro said (logically) that the license requirement doesn’t deter criminals from criminal behavior. “In my view, it deters the law-abiding citizen who may need” a firearm, he said.
Bradley cited statistics from the FBI that he said placed New Hampshire as the sixth-safest state in the nation in terms of violent crime.
Bradley also said “…our radical and our dangerous neighbor to the west – Vermont, which has allowed concealed carry without a license for 200 years without a problem – is the safest state in the nation.” (grin)
He said the statistics show that violent crime rates have dropped in every state that relaxed concealed carry laws.