Donna Morin told lawmakers a waiting period on gun purchases could have saved her son.
Spurred by a recent breakup, he went to the gun shop close to their house in Hooksett and bought a firearm. Then he shot himself.
“At that precise moment, he felt that the pain would never go away. He wasn’t in his right mind,” Morin told a House committee on Thursday. “Nate’s suicide, like so many others, was spontaneous.”
She pleaded New Hampshire lawmakers to support House Bill 56, which would require a 72-hour waiting period on gun sales. It’d also impose background checks on all firearm transfers, closing what some view as a loophole in the law. The state’s Department of Safety conducts background checks on sales from licensed dealers but not private sales.
New Hampshire’s gun death rate was ninth lowest in the country in 2022 but increased by 57% from the prior decade. In 2022, New Hampshire had 156 gun deaths. Of those, 134 were suicides.
People opposed to the bill argued in an hour-long public hearing that it’d curtail citizens’ Second Amendment rights without hindering criminals and that a mandatory waiting period could endanger people who need a gun to defend themselves.
Tom Mannion, a Republican state representative from Pelham, said a background check “injects federal government” into private transfers of property. It’s already a federal crime to sell a gun to a felon or other groups of people who are blocked from obtaining them, he said, but that doesn’t stop criminals from getting firearms anyway.
“This puts unnecessary hurdles in the way of a straightforward transaction between law-abiding citizens,” Mannion said. “This will have no impact on violent crime and only punishes those inclined to follow the law already.”
Public health experts say background checks can help curb gun violence when combined with other prevention strategies.
Other opponents of the bill, like Republican Rep. Cyril Aures, from Chichester, expressed concern that it doesn’t contain exceptions for people who are victims of domestic abuse. They argued that background checks and waiting periods could delay some women from obtaining a gun and ultimately cost them their lives.
Women from Moms Demand Action, a national organization that advocates for stricter gun laws, lined the halls before the hearing and testified in support of the bill. Versions of this bill have been proposed before but have yet to pass.
Morin said she understands the need to protect rights – she’s a gun owner herself and a supporter of the Second Amendment – but she believes that given a few days to think about it, her son might not have taken his own life. It was her birthday that weekend, her son’s friends were supposed to come over, and they’d planned to play games like Settlers of Catan.
“If the law would’ve made him wait just a couple of more days – even 24 hours – he would’ve been able to make a rational decision on if he wanted to really end his life,” Morin said. “Our safety can be balanced with our rights for the common good of New Hampshire citizens.”
