Chris Sununu Isn’t Panicking on Gun Control

After the El Paso and Dayton shootings, most Republican politicians broke for the tall grass. There was talk of a wholesale collapse of GOP support for gun rights in the Senate, and President Trump promised to support “meaningful” changes in federal gun policy. There was little discussion of whether these would actually work to decrease the number of mass killings.

But Chris Sununu, the Republican governor of New Hampshire, didn’t join the call for retreat even though the state leans left. Every member of Congress from New Hampshire is a Democrat, the state has voted Democratic for president in the last three elections, and Sununu himself won reelection last November with only 53 percent of the vote.

Nonetheless, Sununu vetoed three gun-control bills sent to him by the Democratic legislature. While proponents declared they were merely “commonsense” curbs on the abuse of guns, Sununu said they were an infringement on the constitutional rights of state residents and noted that similar measures had been tried elsewhere and done nothing to stop mass shootings.

The three bills that Sununu vetoed would have required background checks for virtually all commercial firearms sales or transfers, even to relatives; mandated a three-day waiting period for the purchase and delivery of a firearm; and prohibited any carrying of a firearm on school property.