Carry Licenses were implemented in New Hampshire nearly 100 years ago to prevent certain undesirable persons from being able to carry concealed. One of the leading Democrat organizations in favor of such limitations was the Ku Klux Klan. So if governor Maggie Hassan vetoes SB 116 is she refusing to repeal a discriminatory policy favored by her ideological… Klancestors?
According to an article in Historical New Hampshire Vol. 43 No.4, The Ku Klux Klan In New Hampshire, 1923-1927, by Stephen H. Goetz, “…Ku Klux showmen blamed societal change on groups of scapegoats: blacks, Catholics, Jews, and immigrants.” In the book The Ku Klux Klan in American Politics ( http://tiny.cc/rfo0yx ), by Arnold S. Rice, he writes:
“The Klan’s plank was chameleonic;…in New England, anti-French Canadian; in the large cities of the Northeast, anti-alien-born….” Rich further writes that the tenets of the Ku Klux Klan were the following: “(1) memorialization of the original Klan; (2) white supremacy; (3) anti-Semitism; (4) anti-foreign-bornism; (5) anti-Catholicism; (6) “pure” Americanism; (7) Protestantism and strict morality.”
New Hampshire’s “suitable person” standard for gun control perfectly mirrored the rising Klan sentiment in New Hampshire. It played on the fears that many in New Hampshire had of the new immigrants. These immigrants made up a substantial portion of the population and workforce centered around the mills of New Hampshire. The “suitable person” standard was put in place to stop immigrants, particularly the French-Canadians, Polish, Irish, and Italians, many of whom were Catholic, from being able to possess and carry guns.
FYI – From Vermont History – History of KKK in Vermont
“Klan organizers appeared in the state for the first time in spring 1922, but a serious membership drive did not begin until 1924, organized out of the northern New England Klan headquarters located at Rochester, New Hampshire.
T/e New England Klan headquarters was in Rochester, New Hampshire. Hmmmm.
H/T Kimberly Morin
