NH school boards back ban on guns in schools

By TIM CAMERATO

Valley News Staff Writer

Published: 02-02-2020 10:05 PM

WEST LEBANON — New Hampshire’s school boards are now backing calls to ban firearms from school grounds, a move advocates hope will bolster a new round of legislation pending in Concord.

Members of the New Hampshire School Boards Association voted, 45-4, on Jan. 25 to support measures “to restrict possession of firearms on school property to authorized law enforcement personnel only.”

The vote — taken at the nonprofit’s annual delegate assembly in Concord — represents a shift away from the group’s previous neutral stance on gun control.

Last year, a similar resolution calling for local control of firearms in schools failed, 32-23.

“It’s a huge reversal,” Timothy Josephson said Thursday. Josephson represented the Mascoma Valley Regional School District at the assembly. “I think it’s a positive step.”

School board chairs from Lebanon, Hanover and Claremont also commended the association’s decision. All three Upper Valley districts have policies banning firearms on school property in defiance of a state law that gives the Legislature sole authority to regulate guns and knives.

The resolution “sends a message that guns have no place in schools other than law enforcement,” said Claremont School Board Chairman Frank Sprague, a former Stevens High School principal.

The New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police is also backing legislation that would prohibit members of the general public from carrying guns on school property.

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“Our view of this is that it is a common-sense safety bill,” Hanover Police Chief Charlie Dennis, the association’s president, said via phone.

While the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act bans weapons within 1,000 feet of a school, state and local police in New Hampshire are prohibited from enforcing the law, according to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office.

That’s in contrast to Vermont, where state law makes it’s a crime to possess a firearm or other deadly weapon while in a school building, on a school bus or school property.

The Oyster River Cooperative School District, which includes the Seacoast towns of Durham, Lee and Madbury, cosponsored the NHSBA resolution along with counterparts in Nottingham and Dover.

Educators and parents are concerned that current state law would allow guns inside schools, which serve as polling places, said Thomas Newkirk, chairman of the Oyster River board.

“It’s basically an open door for guns in schools,” Newkirk, a retired University of New Hampshire professor, said of the state law. “The federal gun-free school zone is essentially a dead letter.”

Democratic lawmakers say the school board association’s decision — and the recent endorsement from New Hampshire’s police chiefs — will help push through a bill that would ban carrying a firearm on school property.

The legislation, HB 1285, wouldn’t apply to law enforcement, those authorized to carry by a school board and people picking up or dropping off students, so long as their guns remain in a vehicle.

“It puts the safety of our children first,” Rep. Mary Heath, D-Manchester, the bill’s prime sponsor, said Thursday.

A hearing on the bill is scheduled for Wednesday in Concord. It likely will face stiff opposition from Republicans, including Gov. Chris Sununu.

Heath, a longtime educator and former dean of the school of education at Southern University of New Hampshire, sponsored a similar bill last year that passed along party-line votes in the Legislature. The legislation was vetoed by the state’s two-term governor.

Sununu also vetoed bills that sought to impose a waiting period on firearms sales and require universal background checks.

“These three bills would not solve our national issues nor would they prevent evil individuals from doing harm, but they would further restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding New Hampshire citizens,” Sununu wrote in his veto message.

Republicans and gun advocacy groups testified before the Senate last April that gun-free school zones wouldn’t deter school shooters and instead would make it more difficult for those who regularly carry firearms to attend school functions and games. Others argued that schools are safer when staff members are allowed to carry firearms.

Meanwhile, the state’s largest teachers union, NEA-NH, supported Heath’s bill. Lobbyist Rick Trombly told legislators that “teachers do not want to get in gunfights, they want to educate kids,” according to notes of the April hearing.

Newkirk, the Oyster River chairman, is still skeptical the legislation will become law.

“It’s probably going to be a long haul, but I think you just have to keep at it,” he said.

Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com or 603-727-3223.

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