Todd I. Selig: Keeping UNH safe: Why ‘campus carry’ is the wrong answer for NH

When a grandmother writes that she is “thankful that screaming does not permeate this email,” it signals genuine alarm about where state policy is headed. HB 1793, the so‑called “Campus Carry” bill, would fundamentally change how University of New Hampshire and its host communities manage risk and public safety.

From the Durham Town Council’s vantage point, HB 1793 is not a modest tweak to firearms policy. It is a significant and unnecessary increase in risk on a compact, residential campus. The bill would remove the ability of the University of New Hampshire and other public campuses like Keene, Plymouth, and UNH-Manchester to prohibit firearms and other weapons. For us, this isn’t an abstract argument about rights. It’s a practical question of how to keep people safe on a busy campus in a New Hampshire town.

UNH is a compact, residential campus embedded in the Town of Durham, with roughly 16,000 students, faculty, and staff on and around campus each day. It is characterized by close quarters, large events, and the same mental‑health and substance‑use challenges seen on campuses nationwide. Picture a sold‑out UNH Wildcat hockey game letting out, with thousands of people spilling from the Whittemore Center onto campus and into nearby streets, restaurants, and parking areas. In that environment, even a single heated dispute is challenging to manage. Introducing more firearms into those same spaces increases the odds that a bad night becomes a lasting tragedy.

In such a setting, increasing the presence of firearms changes the risk profile in ways that are both foreseeable and troubling. Ready access to guns can increase the risk of suicide and other harm, and it complicates the split‑second decisions law‑enforcement officers must make when trying to distinguish between a perpetrator and an armed bystander.

For many years, UNH, the Town of Durham, and regional public‑safety agencies have worked together to build a coherent safety framework. A key element of that framework is UNH’s ability to adopt and enforce weapons regulations suited to its campus environment. Under current policy, firearms are prohibited on campus, but secure, 24/7 police‑station storage is provided for hunting and sporting weapons. This approach has been effective, balancing safety concerns with respect for lawful gun ownership.

HB 1793 would replace that tailored, local approach with a one‑size‑fits‑all “campus carry” mandate. It does so at a time when recent high‑profile campus shootings elsewhere underscore the need for layered prevention strategies, not more weapons in crowded campus settings. The bill also runs counter to long‑standing state policy in RSA 187‑A, which envisions the University System operating with a significant degree of autonomy and self‑governance. If the state is prepared to nullify longstanding, tailored safety policies at UNH, there is little to stop future legislatures from second‑guessing other campus‑level decisions about mental‑health services, crowd management, or emergency planning. That is not a road we should start down lightly.

As Mrs. Bagley’s email makes clear, some out‑of‑state families are already questioning whether they would keep their children at UNH if campus carry becomes law. For all these reasons, the Durham Town Council has formally opposed HB 1793. The Council’s view is that those closest to campus life ― UNH leadership, local law enforcement, host communities such as Durham, Keene, Plymouth, and Manchester, and mental‑health professionals ― are best positioned to assess risks and adopt policies that keep students safe. HB 1793 would remove that local discretion and, in our judgment, make campuses like UNH less safe rather than more.

As the bill moves to the New Hampshire Senate, we hope senators will give careful attention to these practical, non‑partisan concerns. At minimum, any change of this magnitude should clearly improve safety, strengthen governance, or reduce costs. HB 1793 does none of those things. The Senate should decline to move forward with a bill that adds risk, erodes local discretion, and offers no measurable public benefit.

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Originally from Laconia, Todd Selig is the long‑time town manager in Durham.