My representative, John Burt, made the ridiculous assertion that forbidding guns in the House chamber is as “absurd as forbidding women and minorities would be” (Monitor front page, Jan. 3).
Rep. Burt, your desire to come armed into the State House is not your “God-given right.” Nor does the Second Amendment prohibit regulations on our right to bear arms. In fact, Judge Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in D.C. v. Heller (the famous case that gun rights advocates often refer to), wrote that nothing in the court’s finding for Heller “should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.”
“Gun-free zone” does not mean “Constitution-free zone,” as Mr. Burt alleges. I doubt he argues with the TSA when he is boarding a plane or with the security personnel when he is entering a courthouse. I, for one, will feel a lot safer sitting in the gallery if the cowboys leave the guns outside with their horses.
The N.H. House has the right to make these rules. I suggest Rep. Burt choose to either follow them or stay home.
NANCY BRENNAN
Weare