Among the most remarkable displays of legislative audacity performed this year in Concord was the enactment of House Bill 1336, signed into law last month by Gov. Chris Sununu. It requires that as of Jan. 1, 2025, any private or public employer that receives federal or state money must permit employees to keep firearms in their vehicles while on their employer’s premises, so long as the vehicle is locked and the firearms are out of sight. Nor may the employer require an employee to disclose whether she has a gun in her car.

Remarkable, how? Let us count the ways, because there’s a lot to unpack here.

New Hampshire boasts of being the business-friendly “Live Free or Die” state, to which enterprises allegedly flock to reap the benefits of “the New Hampshire (low-tax) advantage.” It’s pretty hard to square that reputation as a bastion of corporate freedom with the actions of a nanny-state government that desires to dictate to employers how they may regulate what takes place on their own property. (The only salve for bruised employers is that the bill exempts them from civil liability for any mayhem committed with firearms stolen from employees’ vehicles.)

Moreover, it’s unclear how state government has the power to add requirements that Congress did not authorize to federal grants and contracts, and which may in fact conflict with federal rules for the use of funds. For one example, forcing school districts that receive federal funds to allow firearms on their property when federal law prohibits guns within school safety zones is fraught with potential problems. (New Hampshire does not have a state law similar to the federal one banning guns on school property, which is already bad enough.)

The sponsor of the bill, state Rep. Daniel Popovici-Muller, R-Windham, told the Concord Monitor that he believes nothing much will change because of the law. It won’t stop crimes, but neither will it increase the likelihood of criminal acts, Popovici-Muller said.

“This bill does not really change the possibility of crimes happening in any meaningful way,” he said. “If someone wants to break into a car, they would presume to break into a car either way because they cannot see there is a firearm. There is nothing that makes that car more attractive than others.”

A moment’s reflection should be enough to discredit this absurd proposition. The prospect of harvesting a bigger supply of weapons might well provide incentive for the criminal element to devote more time and attention to burglarizing vehicles.

Even assuming that the number of car break-ins in New Hampshire each year held steady, if twice as many of the vehicles burglarized had guns in them, it stands to reason that criminals would have twice as much access to stolen weapons as they do at present. Drug gangs would undoubtedly be thrilled with their increased market-share of the gun trade.

And companies that wanted to make sure this didn’t happen might well have to invest thousands of dollars in fencing and surveillance equipment to keep their employees’ vehicles secure.

This is hardly the only concern. High-intensity workplace disputes are surely more likely to end in violence if an agitated employee has only to walk to his vehicle to retrieve a firearm, rather than having to drive home and cool down along the way. The impulse to do harm is enabled by real-time access to the means to do so.

This is not to mention the all-too-familiar scenario in which an employee who has been fired is escorted out of the building and to his car by a company’s human resources officer. This demeaning treatment inspires rage in many who are on the receiving end of it, and we wonder who in the world would volunteer to provide that escort when the discharged employee’s car may well house a loaded gun.

This absurd and dangerous legislation is yet another example of what happens when Second Amendment rights are exalted above all others. Forty-one percent of New Hampshire adults have guns in their homes, according to one estimate, and the state has no licensing requirements. The rights of whatever portion of those adults who own firearms and want to take them to work should not trump the right of employers to ensure the safety of their employees and to secure their property.