New Hampshire Town Allows Workers to Carry Guns to Work
N.H. town allows all employees to carry guns at work.
July 2, 2010— -- The manager of the small New Hampshire town of Nottingham doesn't understand all the fuss surrounding the decision to allow town employees to bring their guns to work.
"Everyone wants to know if I'm packing," Charles Brown told ABCNews.com. "Honestly, all the hoopla is over the top."
For Brown and other officials in the town of 4,800, it's a matter of constitutional rights.
Under the old legislation, all Nottingham employees except police officers were banned from brining their guns onto town property during work hours. The town's selectmen voted last week to allow guns on municipal property, and the change went into effect on Thursday.
Nottingham isn't alone. Across the nation, states increasingly are loosening gun laws in a trend that legal experts predict will intensify following Monday's Supreme Court decision supporting the right to keep and bear arms.
The ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago will only open more state gun-control laws to legal challenges, according to experts. Two years ago, the high court decided that a similar law in the District of Columbia violated the Second Amendment, a precedent that was extended to state and local gun laws around the country.
"The McDonald decision will create a whole new economic growth industry of Second Amendment litigation," Stanford University law professor Robert Weisberg told ABCNews.com. "If you want your son or daughter to have a lucrative income, tell your kid to grow up to be a Second Amendment lawyer."
Floridians will also be able to carry their guns to their jobs, as long as they lock them up inside their vehicles starting today. People who choose to carry a gun must also have a concealed weapons permit. The Florida Chamber of Commerce has challenged the new law in federal court and asked a judge for an injunction. A decision is pending.
When Virginia's legislature recently passed a bill allowing people to carry guns in bars if they have a permit, police chiefs opposed it, but Gov. Bob McDonnell signed it into law. Tennessee passed a law similar to Virginia's despite the veto of Gov. Phil Bredesen.
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