Right to Protect Targeted by NH NRA

The NH NRA Chapter Targets Right to Protect
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The NH Chapter of the NRA, Gun Owners of NH (GONH) opposition to CACR19 targets our individual right to protect our children, our property, and the natural resources upon which our lives depend. The GONH has resorted to intentional misrepresentation and fear-mongering tactics to dissuade this intelligent body of legislators to turn on its people and natural environments and protect corporate special interests over the well-being of Granite-Staters.

CACR19 – The NH Community Rights Amendment – would secure the right of local community self-government to be exercised only to expand, not to lessen, the rights of people as secured by state and federal constitutions.

1. GONH claims the proposed amendment would authorize local laws that restrict individual constitutional rights. The language in CACR19 is clear. The right of local self-government is precisely what the proposed amendment seeks to protect – which is in fact an individual right.
2. CACR19 would PROTECT all rights for natural persons – including 2nd Amendment gun rights – that are recognized in state and federal constitutions.
3. CACR19 codifies that the individual people of New Hampshire have the recognized constitutional right to pass local laws in their county, city, municipality and town to protect their human communities and natural resources in the face of corporate harm, so long as local laws do not infringe on real persons' existing rights under state and federal law including the 2nd Amendment.

 
Republican Representatives who are NRA members and sponsors of the NH Community Rights Amendment have consistently directed amendment naysayers to study CACR19's language: "Local laws adopted pursuant to this article shall not weaken existing protections for, or constrict the fundamental rights of, natural persons, or their local communities, or nature, as those protections and rights are secured by local, state, federal, or international law."

The right of local community self-government is a fundamental, individual political right – exercised collectively – of people to govern the local communities in which they reside.
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The current list of “protections” individuals can exercise at the local level for themselves, their communities, and environments are few. Yet, corporations enjoy a long list of state-permissible legalized harms they can carry out against us: corporate water extraction; mining activities; industrial contamination of waterways, air, and land; large-scale storage and applications of toxic chemicals; superfund sites; harmful and unnecessary commercial energy projects; and so many more. Not only do corporations enjoy our individual personhood rights, they also use Dillon’s Rule and preemption to infringe upon our individual rights as enumerated by our constitutions.

The people living in these affected communities are the ones who most understand what is at stake for the supposed “greater good” of the rest of the state. What negatively affects any one community will have a negative impact on neighboring communities. Cumulatively, the negative impact then becomes no longer for the “greater good” of the State, but for the good of the corporate entities exploiting New Hampshire communities for profit.
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Don’t give in to fear-mongering. Let the people decide if they want to protect their health, safety, and welfare by enumerating within the NH Bill of Rights the right of local community self-government. Government of right originates from the people which is why CACR19 should be put to the voters of New Hampshire.

Michelle Sanborn
President - NH Community Rights Network (NHCRN)