New Hampshire Double Murder and Suicide - Lawful Gun Owner? Concealed Carry Permit Holder?

Local news reports

A man linked to a double shooting in Nashua, N.H., late yesterday afternoon died last night of what police described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head while sitting in a car parked near Market Basket at 700 Essex St.

Police would not release the name of the man, who was described as being in his early to mid-30s and with possible ties to the Lawrence area.

About 9 p.m., Lawrence Police Sgt. Shawn Quaglietta spotted a car matching one mentioned less than an hour earlier in police bulletins in connection with the double shooting in Nashua hours earlier.

Soon after Quaglietta spotted the car, the man shot himself. Quaglietta called for an ambulance as other detectives and patrol officers converged on the scene. 

New Hampshire Man Charged in Dropped Gun Incident

Joshua Thompson

Local news reports

A Haverhill man was arrested Monday after accidentally shooting his girlfriend in the leg.

Police responded Monday night after a report of a gunshot wound. When police responded, they found Joshua Thompson, 22, of Haverhill and a 19-year-old Plaistow woman with a gunshot wound to her leg.

“We believe it was an accidental discharge,” Deputy police Chief Kathleen Jones said. “He dropped it and it went off.”

Police charged Thompson with second-degree assault.

“In New Hampshire, recklessly causing injury to another by means of a dangerous weapon is means for assault,” Jones said. “He was being careless with the firearm.”

New Hampshire Gun Nut Pulls a Shotgun over a Parking Space Dispute

Link to video

Actually I have a lot of empathy for the raging gun nut in this case. I hate inconsiderate drivers. But, let's face it, this is a guy who needs to lose the guns, am I right?

In New Hampshire - Man Shoots Himself and a Woman by Accident - Charges Expected

Local news reports

Police said a Friday night shooting on Congress Street was accidental and didn’t cause any life-threatening injuries.

Police were called to the Canterbury Apartments at 39 Congress St., around 10:30 p.m. Friday for a report of shots fired. The officers first on the scene found that a man had been shot in the hand and a woman had been shot in the upper leg, police said.

The man, a New York resident, had been taking apart a still-loaded handgun when the gun fired, the bullet going through his hand and into the woman’s leg. The woman is a resident of the apartment, police said.

Both victims were brought to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and the man was later transported to the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass., police said.

Police are still investigating and expect to press charges against the male victim, police said.

Gun Permit Application Leads to Felony Criminal Mischief Arrest in Graffiti Case

This booking photo released by the Concord Police... ((AP Photo/Concord Police Department))

Local news reports

A New Hampshire detective combed through hundreds of gun permit applications to find one with a distinctive lowercase "b" that led to an arrest in a 2-year-old racist graffiti case, police said Tuesday.

Concord police said Raymond Stevens, 42, used a permanent black marker to deface the homes of three African refugee families in September 2011. On one home was scrawled, "The subhumans in this house are enjoying a free ride." On another, "Go back to your hell and leave us alone."

Stevens wrote graffiti on a fourth house in the same south Concord neighborhood a year later, according to police. One of the phrases written on that home was, "We cannot coexist with Third World scum."

This guy is another shining example of concealed carry permit holders.  They truly are the superior race.

New Hampshire Open Carrier Arrested for Disorderly Conduct

Johnathon Irish, center, was lawfully carrying a pistol at Harbour Women's Health on June 27, police said, after a large response by law enforcement. Elizabeth Dinan file photo/NFS

Local news reports

A Brentwood man is charged with two counts of disorderly conduct related to a June incident when police were called to the Harbour Women’s Health clinic for a report that a gun was being waved during an argument.

Naturally he denied upholstering the gun and admitted only to "arguing."  The lawyers will take care of everything, I'm sure.

Irish was involved in a similar incident on July 4, 2011, when he open-carried a pistol at a naturalization ceremony in Strawbery Banke Museum attended by a former governor and a retired Supreme Court judge. Detective Rochelle Jones was commended for coaxing Irish and his open-carrying girlfriend to leave at the request of management for Strawbery Banke, which is private property.

Irish told the Herald at the time that he and his girlfriend always wear their weapons openly, as allowed by New Hampshire law. His first firearms training came from the Portsmouth Police Department when he was a Hampton Falls resident and a teenage member of the Police Explorers, he said.

“We go everywhere carrying,” Irish said. “We don’t carry our weapons to be big and bad and to intimidate everyone. The only one who is going to protect us is us. It’s legally allowed, and we’re not some dumb, backwoods idiots who decided to get some guns.”

Did you like that one, "dumb, backwoods idiots"?  I'm not the only one who disparages the stereotypical gun owners we read about everyday.  Even rude Yankee gun nuts do that.

And another thing, I thought gun owners were supposed to be more polite than everybody else and avoid arguments? Doesn't the burden of responsibility of carrying a firearm demand it?

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

New Hampshire Dad Kills 9-Year-old Son and Himself

Local news reports

A New Hampshire software engineer shot his 9-year-old son to death before taking his own life during supervised visitation at a YWCA office, officials said Sunday.

An adult supervisor was present when Muni Savyon, 54, of Manchester, took out a handgun and shot 9-year-old Joshua Savyon of Amherst before shooting himself around 10 a.m., the attorney general's office said.

The father sent an email to a friend suggesting he was suicidal before the shootings, said Rabbi Levi Krinsky of Chabad Lubavitch in Manchester. Krinsky said Savyon had been depressed after recently returning from his brother's funeral in Israel but he had seen him last week and had no concerns he would harm himself or someone else.

The Democrats Want More Gun-Free Zones in New Hampshire

Huffington Post

A newly elected New Hampshire state legislator has proposed legislation to ban openly carrying guns in public buildings. 

State Rep.-elect Delmar Burridge (D-Keene) said he wants to stop the practice of carrying guns into public buildings, including schools, libraries and the Statehouse, as a way to make the state safer. 

The legislation, which is gathering opposition from the state chapter of the National Rifle Association, would allow those with conceal carry permits to continue bringing guns into public buildings. Certified peace officers also still would be able to carry guns openly in public buildings under the legislation. 

Burridge said New Hampshire's conceal carry laws require a permit that can only be obtained with three character references, along with permission from a local police department -- a process that ensures safety when permitted carriers bring guns into public spaces, he said. 

Burridge noted that the practice of openly carrying guns into state buildings has caused problems in the state Legislature. Rep. Kyle Tasker (R-Nottingham) dropped one of his guns on the floor during a House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee meeting in March. Tasker, who carries two guns in a shoulder holster, said at the time that he was feeling "loopy" after giving blood and that caused the gun to fall to the floor. Tasker's gun did not discharge.

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

Gun-Rights Set-Backs in New Hampshire

NHPR reports

The New Hampshire state Senate rejected several controversial gun bills Wednesday. All of the proposals originally passed the House.

The move suggests that the Senate’s patience for 2nd Amendment legislation may be about up.

The Senate made brisk work of the so-called gun bills in front of them. “We spent a grand total of 6 minutes on 5 bills because we want to focus on the issues that are important to the New Hampshire people,” Senate President Peter Bragdon said.

The bills the Senate down include a measure allowing people to carry loaded weapons – including crossbows – in their vehicles and one that permits weapons in public places like college campuses, the Verizon Center and the state psychiatric hospital.

This is wonderful news. I love the way gun-rights folks keep talking like these gun bills are part of their 2A rights and therefore inevitable. It's heartening to see not everyone agrees with that.

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

Another Gun Owner Didn't Secure His (or Her) Lethal Weapon.AGAINWith Disastrous Results

We keep hearing from the gun loons that they don't need to be compelled to keep their weapons safe and secure------ except they don't.  They want us to trust them, but incidents like this are clear proof of why we don't trust their securing their weapons, or their judgment with their weapons.

This shouldn't have happened.  The person whose firearm was used should never, ever, ever be allowed to have possession of a firearm again, for failing to take adequate precautions.  I hope they are deeply troubled and haunted by this event for the rest of their lives.  I'd go so far as to say that negligence will turn out to be a factor in this child getting his hands on a firearm.  Shame, shame, double shame on this firearm owner.

Firearm owners are not safe, not nearly safe enough, in spite of what they tell us.  The proof of that is in how many more firearm homicides, suicides and accidents occur in homes with firearms compared to those households that do NOT have them, and compared to those countries that do not allow them as freely as we do.

But hey.......so long as they can stroke and carry and for all I know kiss their precious fetish objects at all times or nearly so, they don't mind this sort of thing at all.  It's well worth it to them.  They justify it in all kinds of ways, but the bottom line is, it doesn't matter what happens to anyone else so long as they have their fetish object handy to keep them happy.

That strongly suggests to me that the rest of us don't matter, and don't really have freedom or rights.  That's not 'natural law' that's really ugly selfish bloody-mindedness.
From MSNBC.com :

Report: Boy shoots himself in front of 70 students

By NBC News, msnbc.com staff and news services

A New Hampshire elementary school was placed under lockdown Friday after a 14-year-old student shot himself in the face in the cafeteria with about 70 students present, NBC station WPTZ reported.
Cheshire County Attorney Peter Heed said Friday the gunshot was self-inflicted. The shooting happened around 11 a.m. at Walpole Elementary School in Walpole. The boy was hospitalized, but his name and condition were not released. No one else was hurt, according to WPTZ.
"Our hearts go out to the family of this young man and our thoughts go out to all of the students that were in the school at this time," Heed said at a news conference. He did not say what kind of gun the student used or where he might have obtained it. He also did not offer any information on why the student shot himself.
As of Friday afternoon, the student was in serious condition in the intensive care unit.
Ethan Symonds, a seventh-grader who was sitting at a table near the boy in the cafeteria, said he heard something "a little bit louder than a chip bag popping." He said he did a double-take, saw blood, and ran.
Eighth-grader Nick Phillips, who shares homeroom with the student, told WPTZ the boy had been passing notes during the week saying he was depressed. Phillips told the station he didn't know why.
Police allowed parents to retrieve their children.
"The state of New Hampshire is offering whatever assistance it can to the community, along with all of our thoughts and prayers," Gov. John Lynch said in a statement.
About 170 students in fifth through eighth grades attend the school.
Walpole is in southwest New Hampshire, a few miles from the Vermont state line and about 15 miles northwest of Keene.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

New Hampshire Senate Bill 88

Title: (3rd New Title) relative to physical force in defense of a person, relative to producing or displaying a firearm or other means of self-defense, and relative to eliminating minimum sentencing and adding civil immunity for certain firearm use.

I think we need a lawyer to explain this one to us, but my understanding is it would expand the castle-doctrine and lessen the punishment for gun offenses.

The Union Leader reports on the struggle expected this week by the NH Senate to over-ride the governor's veto.

Gov. John Lynch faces his toughest fight on his veto of Senate Bill 88, which expands the legal use of deadly force and includes the so-called Ward Bird provision adding flexibility in sentencing for criminal threatening.

SB 88 passed 19-5 along party lines in the Senate. That is more than enough for a two-thirds vote to override the veto. It would take four defections from Republican ranks to sustain Lynch.

Senators have been under intense pressure from law enforcement at all levels. All 10 county attorneys, sheriffs, chiefs and police associations have urged senators to sustain the veto.

The sickness of partisan politics and voting along party lines irrespective of what's right or wrong or what a particular voting politician really believes, practically dooms this one to failure. Four Republicans would have to defect, which to me sounds unlikely. What do you think?

Please leave a comment.