Giffords Applauds New Hampshire House for Passing Gun Safety Bills
H.B. 109 closes dangerous loopholes in the background checks system while H.B. 514 creates a 7-day waiting period for firearm purchases
March 19, 2019— Giffords , the gun safety organization led by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, praised the New Hampshire House for passing H.B. 109, a bill that requires background checks for commercial firearms sales, and H.B. 514, which imposes a waiting period between the purchase and delivery of a firearm.
“Someone in New Hampshire every 3 days dies from a gunshot—forever changing the lives of hundreds of families,“ said Molly Voigt, state legislative manager at Giffords. “After decades of politicians refusing to do anything to address this epidemic, New Hampshire has a new majority of leaders taking action to pass two lifesaving measures. Background checks will help keep guns out of the hands of individuals who shouldn’t have them, and a waiting period can stop someone in a crisis from impulsively committing suicide. We thank lawmakers in the House who stepped up to fight for this legislation and urge the senate to move quickly to get this to the governor’s desk so we can make New Hampshire safer from gun violence.”
Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence recently released the latest edition of its Annual Gun Law Scorecard , which grades and ranks each state on its gun laws, and found that New Hampshire received an “F.” New Hampshire further weakened its poor gun laws in 2018 by repealing its prohibition on carrying firearms in vehicles. Currently, the state does not require a permit to carry concealed guns in public, nor does it require background checks at gun shows, online, or in private sales. New Hampshire could raise its F grade by instituting background checks.
A report by Giffords Law Center, Confronting the Inevitability Myth: How Data-Driven Gun Policies Save Lives from Suicide , highlights the lethal connection between immediate gun access and suicide. The report finds that over half of all suicides result from self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Yet the link between gun access and suicide risk remains dangerously misunderstood, denied, and ignored. While the gun lobby continues to perpetuate the myth that guns play no role in suicide, the reality is the vast majority of people who attempt suicide survive their attempt, recover, and do not go on to die by suicide—unless they use firearms. This is why guns are used in 5% of suicide attempts but cause over 50% of suicide deaths.
Because federal gun laws don’t require a background check for every gun sale, dangerous people prohibited by law from possessing guns—like domestic abusers, people with violent criminal records, and people prohibited for mental health reasons—can easily buy a gun from unlicensed sellers with no background check and no questions asked.
- A 2017 study estimated that 22% of US gun owners acquired their most recent firearm without a background check—which translates to millions of people obtaining millions of guns, no questions asked, each year.
- People who commit crimes with firearms overwhelmingly obtain these firearms from unlicensed sources. A 2013 study found that approximately 80% of all firearms acquired for criminal purposes were obtained from sellers who were not required to run a background check and that 96% of inmates who were prohibited from possessing a firearm at the time they committed their crime obtained their gun this way.
- Data suggests that people looking to purchase firearms on Armslist.com, a major online firearms marketplace, revealed that nearly 1 in 9 prospective buyers had prohibiting histories or status — a rate over 7 times higher than buyers who fail background checks at licensed dealers or in other contexts where background checks are required.
- Unlicensed sellers have also been noted as major contributors to illegal firearm trafficking within the United States and across the US-Mexico border.