Fear of gun law not based in fact, but personal views(NH)

seacoastonline.com ^ | 30 August, 2011 | Michael Lesser

[marktwain]

The veto of Senate Bill 88 should be overridden by the Legislature. This castle doctrine legislation does not and would not allow criminals to use a firearm (probably already obtained illegally) in an illegal act, such as shooting another gang member to use this legislation as a means to escape justice.

It does not even permit law-abiding citizens who legally own firearms to fire in self-defense without accountability to whether deadly force was imminent and whether it may have even been appropriate under those circumstances to use a firearm (e.g., a crowded street filled with citizens). Only the criminals and police get to do that.

But a zealous district attorney could charge a private citizen with reckless conduct or worse if he/she shoots a criminal with a firearm who threatened with deadly force and that citizen did not retreat. In that case, and similar cases, this legislation would prohibit prosecution of the law-abiding citizen.

All of these scenarios presented by the governor, the police chiefs and Burt Cohen are lies. As I've said many times previously, there is not a shred of data or any analysis of the available data from the 30-plus states with similar types of castle doctrine legislation enacted that any of these scenarios would occur. Here is a great example where science-driven policy decisions are not being used.

Just like the science of climate change and evolution are ignored or replaced by faith-based explanations, here we have a case where criminal science, macroeconomics and the available data (e.g., the FBI data base and the analyses of that data) are being ignored to put forward false claims of calamity based on personal beliefs and not facts.

Michael Lesser

Newmarket

[marktwain]

I would not have muddied the waters with the climate change and evolution references.

[mbynack]

That's what really bothers me about lawmakers. They don't seem to look at available information before taking sides.

I have an MBA and an engineering degree. Both disciplines stress fact finding as part of the decision making process.

Identify the problem
gather the data
analyze the data
formulate solutions
test solutions
implement the solution
gather feedback to see if it worked.

Instead of doing this, we have lawmakers who insist on using "gut feelings" instead of looking at the available data. They don't even check to see if the laws they're writing are already on the books. That's how we end up with a dozen different federal agencies that are all responsible for education.

Several states have castle doctrine and stand your ground laws. Why not look at those states and see the consequences?