Following the shootings at military recruiting centers in Chattanooga, governors around the nation have been either taking action or looking into options to ensure the safety of our service members with domestic assignments. In Texas, Governor Abbott has already made the move. Doug Ducey in Arizona did the same. Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma followed suit and even Rick Scott in Florida ordered the National Guard to move out of a storefront office and into an armory. Some, like Nathan Deal in Georgia, are refusing.

Now, in one of the nation’s most freedom loving bastions of Second Amendment rights, the pressure is being applied to New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan. Granite Grok reports that more than five dozen state legislators have sent a letter to Hassan asking her to grant their service members the same rights and privileges enjoyed by the rest of her citizens when it comes to carrying and being able to defend themselves, particularly in such troubled times.

Sixty-Seven New Hampshire House Reps have signed on to an open letter to Governor Hassan. They are asking that she change state policy to allow members of the NH National Guard to carry firearms either concealed or openly, like any other legal gun owner in the State, at their own discretion.

A portion of the letter:

Governor Maggie Hassan
Office of the Governor
Statehouse, 107 North Main Street
Concord, NH 03301

Your Excellency,

It has come to our attention that members of the New Hampshire National Guard, of whom you are the Commander-in-Chief, are not allowed to carry firearms openly or concealed except under specific direction from yourself or the local commander. This fact appears to be due to current standing orders, regulations, or policies and denies to them the right of self-protection enjoyed by all citizens of New Hampshire. This right is embodied in Part 1, Article 2-a of the New Hampshire Constitution, which provides that “[a]ll persons have the right to keep and bear arms in defense of themselves, their families, their property, and the state.”

Due to the multi-dimensional threat posed to our nation and our state by various terror groups, including radical Islamic Jihadists (as demonstrated most recently in the military reserve and recruiting stations assassinations in Chattanooga Tennessee), it is our firm opinion that it is imprudent to continue to refuse New Hampshire Guard personnel their right to arm themselves at their own discretion.

This comes on the heels of some of these same legislators imploring the Governor to do away with the policy of making recruiting centers Gun Free Zones, which is pretty much the same thing as a free fire zone for terrorists and criminals.

The legislators – and in fact the voters across the state – have a problem on their hands. They elected a Democrat in picking Hassan, and no matter how “moderate” she may have looked on numerous issues, she’s not fully onboard with Second Amendment rights and owes some fealty to her gun grabbing Democrat supporters. True to her word, she recently broke out her veto pen when the citizens’ elected representatives passed constitutional carry for everyone in New Hampshire. That shouldn’t come as a terrible surprise since her “moderate” credentials were never that strong anyway. If you look at her position statements on various issues, she’s pretty much a doctrinaire liberal who supports unions, opposes right to work states, likes gun control and owes some serious payback to Planned Parenthood who helped fund her election efforts.

Given that rather defiant history, I somehow doubt that Hassan is suddenly going to see the light now and help secure the National Guard stations. It would be seen as a slap in the face to her anti-gun supporters who got her into office in the first place. But for what it’s worth, NRA-ILA has a petition going to get the Governor to see the light. Feel free to toss them your support if you’re so inclined. But perhaps a clearer message might be sent by the voters themselves in the next election. New Hampshire is one of the most forward thinking states in the nation when it comes to gun rights, and how they manage to keep electing somebody with Hassan’s record is a mystery.