Last week, Alan sent out an important email about SB 141; which, if enacted into law, will end the handgun sales delays in New Hampshire once and for all. Click here for the web version if you missed it. SB 141 is vitally important legislation.

I’m writing today to refute some of the falsehoods that we have heard being spread about SB 141:

1) Passing SB 141 will give a list of gun owners to the FBI. First of all, federal regulations CURRENTLY require these names to be forwarded to the FBI. So, no difference in that respect. McClure-Volkmer (which I managed), the Smith Amendment (which I drafted), and the Tiahrt Amendment all prohibit the submissions from being collected as a list of names (see, 18 U.S.C. 923(g), 926(a)(3), and statutes at large). If the FBI is not complying with the law as a secondary point of contact, it makes no difference whether it’s the primary or secondary point of contact.

2) If NICS is shut down — for any reason — New Hampshire can approve a gun sale. This is false. The New Hampshire “gun line” is in addition to, not instead of, FBI NICS. If NICS doesn’t work, then the New Hampshire state police will be shut down.

3) The “gun line” has been fixed. No it hasn’t. We have seen, over the past 22 years that when gun owners and dealers complain, band-aid solutions are applied. Then, when the complaints die down, the problems start again. The ONLY reason the “gun line” may have slightly improved is because of SB 141.

4) If we get rid of the “gun line,” we’re giving power to the FBI. Wrong. The FBI already has all of the power. The NICS system, which is accessed by the “gun line,” is an FBI system which is owned and controlled by the federal government. The New Hampshire “gun line” is merely a delay prone conduit (funded with state, instead of federal dollars) between a gun dealer and NICS. The FBI controls the system and has all the power. If that bothers you (as it should) demand that Congress repeal the requirement for dealers to conduct a background check in the first place.

Since New Hampshire is only a point of contact for handgun sales, gun dealers are required to contact the FBI NICS center for rifle and shotgun sales. We have seen first hand the difference between the delay prone New Hampshire system and the far more efficient FBI system. This is not theoretical. It is real — the evidence is there and the evidence shows that the “gun line” has got to go to the scrap heap of history.

SB 141 is vitally important legislation. Please don’t forget to contact your state reps and urge them to vote to overturn the committee recommendation of “inexpedient to legislate” — (ITL) and then to vote YES on an expected “ought to pass” motion. If you prefer to make a call instead of sending an email, click here for the House Roster.

For additional information on this very serious issue, click here for an older alert on this bill that contains several links to the many alerts that GOA has sent on SB 141, as well as an article that was published by Ammoland.

Please use the below form to urge your state reps to support SB 141!

Have you experienced a problem with the “gun line”? Please click here to tell GOA about it.