Eric Taussig: US Constitution’s supremacy clause nullifies HB 1178

To The Daily Sun,

On June 4, in a letter to this paper, Rep. Richard Littlefield only criticized my rhetorical question whether guns as instrumentalities kill people, yet unfortunately missed the point, of my letter, which was to criticize HB 1178.

The editor saw the purpose of my letter by headlining it: “Bill proposed to circumvent federal gun laws problematic”.

That legislation that Mr. Littlefield voted for, if approved by the governor, would “prohibit the state from enforcing any federal statute, or presidential executive order that restricts or regulates the right of people to keep and bear arms.”

Proponents of HB 1178 should take notice that the U.S. Department of Justice is suing Missouri over their very similar state law that explicitly prohibits the state from enforcing federal laws regulating certain types of weapons such as machine guns that have been banned by federal law since 1922. In a public statement, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said that the Missouri law limits cooperation with federal authorities and is making the community less safe. That law, called “the Second Amendment Preservation Act” prohibits local and state police from enforcing federal gun laws. The law also creates penalties for officers who help the feds. They could be compelled to pay $50,000 to anyone who asserts their Second Amendment rights were violated.

The fact of the matter is that the Missouri law and New Hampshire legislation violates the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause as well as federal pre-emption. It is really unfortunate that the former chief justice of NH, Robert Lynn, authored this spurious legislation. He should know better.

Unfortunately, state legislators voting for this type of legislation, including Messrs. Lynn, Littlefield, etc., appear to forget that they took oaths to uphold both the federal and state constitutions.

Eric Taussig

Moultonborough