More information from Penny Dean for GO-NH, Inc regarding questions that came up in the main discussion thread:
In a nutshell, the chief of police is now the ONLY person in the state that BY LAW (this law, if it passes) can determine if a range is “safe” a VERY VERY DANGEROUS thing also, implicitly, (and the court will allow this as a practical matter) you now have no 4th amendment rights on your property, you send the letter “notifying” the chief you are going to shoot on your land, the chief has a right , by the language “The chief of police may not permit the activity if he or she determines that it is not safe.” to “not” permit the activity if he/she determines it is not safe.
And it will be reasonable for the chief to regularly “inspect” that range to make sure nothing is changed. All without warrant, and you (like an FFL, who by virtue of applying for a license, givens up most of his 4th A rights) will have waived those by the shooting notification. So, in order to make that determination, he/she must/may VISIT the range and inspect it, how does one visit the range if one does not go there? 4th A gone. It doesn’t say the chief has to get permission to go on your land, doesn’t say he has to call first …..think about this language: the law is implicit that the chief can simply inspect this range (and if you think for a minute the courts will stop a chief from “visiting/inspecting” this range, you are wrong. The court will say, you sent the chief a notice, he has a right to not permit activity if not safe, how in the world can a person determine if it is safe if they do not see it) Right now NH has NO criteria for “safety” of ranges. Do you want some?
Also, you can see that now, when someone complains about a local range or private non compact zone person shooting, that it will not be a stretch for the chief (who is the only person BY LAW that has the ability to determine the “safety” of a range) to say the range is not “safe” thus allowing a neighbor or other anti-shooting person to skirt around the noise law (which is really what they are angry about). Do you really want to make the chief of police with no guidelines a judge jury and executioner in this matter? You have given this man enormous decision making power over the “safety” of ranges with no criteria or guidelines. Well, what if they add an appeal process?? Great, now only those with money can fight (in general very few pro se litigants are successful, or even willing to try), and then…..come the guidelines.
Most important, under the current law, in the past 5 years, how many complaints (criminal/civil) have been brought in the courts? So, the question is this a solution in search of a problem? How many people have been cited under RSA 644:13 in the past 10 years? In 2009 (and not just for shooting, but for ALL Of it!) that would be 10. Nine in 2008, 6 in 2007, 10 in 2005 ……in short these are NOT all for shooting but for RSA 644:13 in toto, ( I have yet to obtain the specific cases, I know the RAW numbers, and these are NOT convictions, simply the number charges per the statistician for the NH Dist. Court). Does we really want to give chiefs this authority? GONH works long and hard, does lots of research and thinks things through before taking a position.
One further most important point, those who attended the hearing (GONH did) heard the rep. of the chiefs association and the Manchester, NH assistant chief and the Hebron chief intimate (although they did not say so explicitly) that they will NEVER allow ANYONE to shoot, as they feel they have liability, so now, the ONLY person who can allow one to shoot on their own land (the selectmen used to be able to, under old law) has said that if he allows you to shoot HE has implicitly said it was safe, and he does not want liability, so easy solution is he does not allow anyone to shoot.
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