A bill proposed by four Democratic Senators could send peaceful gun owners to prison for a year and fine them $2,000.
Senate Bill 719 appears on the surface to be a common-sense bill. In fact, this author initially felt ambivalent when glancing at the bill, which simply purports to establish “procedures for reporting a lost or stolen firearm.” I did not read the full bill, and I doubt many others did, either.
Just a few moments ago, I remembered that I did ‘lose’ a firearm around a week ago, and I did not report it to the police. Something told me that I should check the bill for specifics and for punishments; tyrants often propose harsh punishments for violating laws created by their authoritarian bills. Here is what I found in the bill’s text:
“If such person purposely fails to make such report within the prescribed time period, such person shall be guilty of a class A misdemeanor.”
According to New Hampshire law, a class A misdemeanor conviction could result in a year in prison and/or a fine of $2,000 for the defendant. I temporarily could not locate one of my firearms due to moving all of my firearms out of my house in their cases and asking various friends to hold on to them while I ran to a hotel due to a house fire. If this bill were already the law, I would be guilty of a serious crime and I would be facing a year in prison for knowingly failing to report a lost firearm within the prescribed period (which is 3 days). As we settled back into the house after staying in a hotel for two weeks, I located all of my firearms, as I knew I would. If you have ever misplaced or forgotten where you left a firearm, you should strongly oppose this insane bill.
How did the cunning authors of the bill slip this one past so many watchdogs?
In addition to the title/analysis of the bill making it seem benign, the language itself is somewhat misleading:
Any person who fails to make a report required under paragraph I shall be guilty of a violation and shall be fined not more than $100 for a first offense, and shall be guilty of a class B misdemeanor for any subsequent offense. If such person purposely fails to make such report within the prescribed time period, such person shall be guilty of a class A misdemeanor.
Unless you read the final sentence of this section, you might not see a major issue with this bill. Of course, the only difference in the final sentence is the word ‘purposely’. Any prosecutor worth his weight in trash could prove that a person who neglected to report a lost or stolen firearm for three full days did so ‘purposely’. This is one of the many tactics that tyrants use - and that The Liberty Block strives to inform people about.
This bill seems to argue that it is critically important to alert ‘the authorities’ whenever an individual loses track of something that could be potentially dangerous. Losing a firearm could be dangerous because a person who finds it might hurt someone using the the firearm. Considering that New Hampshire citizens own roughly the same amount of firearms as vehicles, car crashes are more likely than firearms to injure and to kill people. As such, this bill should be amended to include the mandatory reporting of the loss or theft of one’s car keys.
Another interesting note is that this bill is model legislation from the anti-gun group, ‘Giffords Law Center To Prevent Gun Violence’. This further demonstrates how anti-gun the bill’s roots are. The website’s page on model legislation states that this model bill “Requires any firearm owner or possessor to report the loss or theft of his or her firearm to law enforcement within 48 hours of the time he or she knew or reasonably should have known of the loss or theft. (In today’s world, even Giffords might be condemned for insulting all non-binary individuals by using such language as “he or she”.)
The Senate Judiciary Committee will likely recommend that the whole Senate pass this bill. This vote will take place very soon.
Find and email your Senator and tell them to oppose this fascist, authoritarian, anti-freedom, anti-gun bill. If it passes the Senate, we will update you and help you contact your Representatives.
*****UPDATE*****
This bill has died in the Senate! Thank you so much for calling and emailing your senators!
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views held by The Liberty Block or any of its contributors or members.
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