Also on today’s menu:
Adam Montgomery Convicted In Harmony’s Death
Strossen To Address The Importance Of Free Speech
The House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee supported House Bill 1050, which would have allowed people worried about hurting themselves or others to add their names to the “do not sell” list of people prohibited from possessing guns, but when the bill went to the full House, it failed on a 179-200 vote.
The House did pass an amended version of House Bill 1339, creating a process for the return of firearms seized as part of a restraining order or bail condition. The bill would require the prompt return of guns to the owner after the order has expired, although it allows the court to conduct a safety background check before returning the guns; the Department of Safety would have two business days to initiate a check and 10 business days to return a finding. The bill also lays out a timeline for challenging a finding that prohibits the return of firearms. The bill now goes to the House Finance Committee.
House Bill 1186, which would prohibit firearms retailers in New Hampshire from entering the International Organization for Standardization code to track firearms purchases made by credit and debit cards, passed on a 203-174 vote, resulting from political pressure from attorneys-general in 24 states, firearm rights groups, and major credit card companies. It also heads to the House Finance Committee for review.
Discussion: With all of the school shootings, mass shootings, and lives lost to domestic violence, a common-sense bill that would allow people worried about their ability to refrain from violence to put their names on a list to prevent them from purchasing a gun should have passed without a problem, but we’re not living in a common-sense world. One can understand why someone would object to an automatic trace of gun transactions involving credit cards, although there is a good case for doing so. And it makes perfect sense to have a process in place to return guns to people after they have been seized when the concerns about a crime of passion have been put to rest. It’s just difficult to enact any reasonable laws regarding gun ownership when people believe any change is part of a campaign to get rid of all guns.
Adam Montgomery Convicted In Harmony’s Death
A jury has convicted Adam Montgomery, 34, of second-degree murder in the death of his 5-year-old daughter, Harmony, who police believe was killed nearly two years before she was reported missing in 2021.
Her body was never found, and Adam has proclaimed his innocence, saying he loved Harmony “unconditionally”. His attorneys did acknowledge his guilt on two lesser charges, that he “purposely and unlawfully removed, concealed or destroyed” her corpse and falsified physical evidence.
The jury also convicted him of assaulting Harmony in 2019 and of tampering with the key prosecution witness, Kayla Montgomery, his estranged wife and stepmother of his daughter.
Discussion: Adam Montgomery had custody of the girl after splitting up with Harmony’s mother, Crystal Sorey. She said the last time she saw her daughter was during a video call in April 2019. Police whom she eventually contacted announced that they were looking for the missing child on New Year’s Eve 2021. Kayla Montgomery testified that the body had been hidden in the trunk of a car, a cooler, a ceiling vent, and a workplace freezer before Adam disposed of it.
Strossen To Address The Importance Of Free Speech
Nadine Strossen will address the topic “Why Free Speech Matters More Than Ever” in a presentation at Plymouth State University’s Boyd Hall on Tuesday, February 27, at 6:30 p.m. The program also will be streamed on Zoom.
Strossen is a former president of the American Civil Liberties Union and currently serves as the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School. She also is a senior fellow with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free speech organization that recently granted PSU a “Green Light” rating for its commitment to free speech on campus.
While in Plymouth, Strossen also will speak with the PSU Student Government on Monday, February 26, and with the university’s Criminal Procedure class on Wednesday, February 28.
Discussion: Free speech is at the heart of democracy, and FIRE was established “to defend and sustain the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought” while teaching the importance of doing so in a culture of respect. Much of society today has abandoned its willingness to listen and respect others’ opinions, putting more emphasis on bullying those on the other side of an issue, rather than engaging them in a discussion to reach a common agreement about what is right.