New Hampshire just shoved a hard question back onto the table: when you step onto a college campus, do you step out of your constitutional rights?
A campus carry bill, HB 1793, has cleared the New Hampshire House and now heads to the state Senate, where lawmakers will weigh it next. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Sam Farrington, a Republican, and it aims to allow law-abiding college students to carry firearms on campus for self-defense.
If that sounds like a narrow policy debate, it is not. It is a collision between two American instincts that rarely play nice together: the instinct for safety through control, and the instinct for liberty through individual responsibility.
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What HB 1793 says
Rep. Farrington framed the bill in plain constitutional terms. “New Hampshire is a constitutional carry state, which means you do not need a permission slip to exercise your right to bear arms,” he said.
He also leaned on a familiar civic benchmark: adulthood. “Colleges students can fight in a war, they can vote, so they should be entitled to their Second Amendment rights as well.”
That is not just rhetoric. It points to the basic tension: colleges often treat students like minors when it comes to rules, but the law treats them like adults when it comes to responsibilities. The Constitution does not come with a campus exception clause.
What opponents fear
Campus carry opponents usually talk about the same set of fears: accidents, suicides, drinking, fights, dorm room disputes that turn deadly. In New Hampshire, state Sen. Bill Gannon, a Republican, put one of those fears bluntly. He said he is “scared” about firearms being kept in dorms.
Fear is not irrational. But in a free society, fear is not enough. The question is whether fear can justify turning a public institution into a place where a fundamental right is treated like contraband.
And here is the detail that matters in a debate like this: while Gannon stressed concerns about students and guns in housing facilities, he did not cite a single dorm incident from any of the states that currently allow campus carry.
What other states show
Supporters of campus carry have a simple rebuttal: other states have tried it.
According to supporters tracking these laws, approximately ten states currently allow campus carry. (That number used to be 11 until Colorado enacted a ban that took effect in the summer of 2024.)
Farrington’s argument is that the predicted chaos does not materialize. “We’ve seen no increase in accidental shootings, suicides, drunken fights; it just hasn’t happened in those other states,” he said.
Even if you dispute the conclusion, the structure of the argument matters: it is a demand for evidence, not just anxiety. In constitutional conflicts, evidence is supposed to carry more weight than mood and speculation.
The rights question underneath
Here is the part too many people skip: a college campus is not only a learning environment. It is also property. It is often public property. And rules about firearms on that property are not just “school policy.” They are, functionally, rules about where a person may exercise the right to armed self-defense.
In my view, after the Supreme Court’s modern Second Amendment cases, states do not get unlimited freedom to declare new “gun-free” islands just because the argument sounds compassionate. Restrictions have to fit within the nation’s historical traditions of firearm regulation. That is a high bar, and it is supposed to be.
So the argument is not “Do you like guns?” The argument is: Can the government re-label ordinary public spaces as special zones where a constitutional right becomes optional?
What it means on campus
If you are a student, a staff member, or a visitor, campus carry debates land on your life in concrete ways. Here are the practical constitutional stakes, regardless of which side you are on:
- Location matters. Rights are often won or lost by “where” rules. If campuses become broad weapon-free zones by default, the right to carry can shrink without being repealed.
- Policy can act like law. Even when a college rule is not a criminal statute, it can still punish you through expulsion, termination, or discipline. That is government power when the institution is public.
- Self-defense does not schedule appointments. If the law recognizes a right to armed self-defense, the hardest question is whether that right exists only off campus, after class, in the parking lot, on the walk home.
- Dorms are the flashpoint. The dorm issue is where “campus” becomes “home.” The Constitution has always treated the home as a special place for self-defense. The fight is whether a student’s home counts when the key came from the bursar’s office.
What the Senate must answer
As HB 1793 moves to the New Hampshire Senate, lawmakers are going to talk about safety. They should. But they also owe the public something harder: clarity about rights.
If the state believes adults have the right to carry for self-defense, the Senate has to explain why that right should weaken at the campus boundary. And if the state believes campuses are different, lawmakers should say what makes them different in constitutional terms, not just cultural ones.
Because once you accept the idea that a public institution can opt out of a right for safety reasons, you have to answer the next question too: Which right is next?