Despite New Hampshire being a state that does not require a permit for open carry or concealed weapons, it has the highest number of background checks across the country for handguns (pistols and revolvers). In response to federal law prohibiting firearms to felons, fugitives and domestic abusers, the State of New Hampshire has enacted its own laws that prohibit the sale of firearms to felons.
Criminal Background Check System
National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is mandated to keep the public safe by maintaining a database of convicted criminals, sex offenders, domestic abusers amongst others who may be a danger to the public. The NICS also aims to use the database to ensure timely transfer of firearms to law-abiding citizens.
The NICS is administered by the FBI and gathers data from criminal records across states. The database keeps records of people with convictions that led to imprisonment terms exceeding one year, foreign fugitives, and immigration offenders including those with none immigrants visas. The information is gathered from the National Crime Information Center, Department of Homeland Security and the Interstate Identification Index.
Usually, the NICS works with state governments, but state governments are not required to work in liaison with NICS. New Hampshire is a “partial contact state”. This means that the New Hampshire’s Department of Safety has agreed to act as a point of contact for handgun transfers but not for the transfer of long guns. This means background checks for handguns are initiated through the Department of Safety and long gun background checks initiated directly through the FBI.
Background Checks and Mental Illness
States report to the NCIS people who have been “adjudicated as a mental defective”. New Hampshire is one of the few states that had not been reporting people with mental illness to the background check system. However, there are laws that allow for the release of confidential patient information where it has been established that there is a need to protect the individual or members of the public.
In 2016 New Hampshire legislature passed the Medicaid Expansion Bill which prohibits agencies, individuals or organization from passing mental patient’s information to NICS unless ordered to do so by a court in which the person in question was present with his or her attorney.
Other Views on the Medicaid Expansion Bill
However, some like the New Hampshire Attorney General has differed with the courts on the provisions of the Medicaid Expansion Bill. The Attorney General, Joseph Foster, sent a letter in July 2016 to the courts ordering them to begin sending the information of dangerously ill persons to the NICS. His interpretations of the law would mean that New Hampshire’s Department of Safety will start providing information on people who have been found unfit to stand trial, people not found guilty for reasons of insanity will have their information released to NICS.
Opponents of the interpretation believe that the interpretation should come from the courts rather than from a letter from the Attorney General. Also, sponsors and supporters of the bill have insisted that the amendments to the Medicaid Expansion Act were made specifically to prevent access to victim records without a court order.
By Kevin Tighe
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