Second Amendment

In New Hampshire, a Setback for Second Amendment Rights on Campus

A legislative effort to eliminate gun-free zones on public college campuses has died. But for its student sponsor, the fight isn’t over yet.

Ari Shtein | 5.22.2026 3:15 PM

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(Illustration: Todd Taulman/Elliot Burlingham/Dreamstime)

On Thursday, an effort to eliminate gun-free zones on New Hampshire college campuses fizzled out in the state Legislature, when the Senate voted against a committee of conference to renegotiate the bill with House leaders. Despite the setback, proponents of the legislation say they're not done.

"We'll be pursuing this with a legal challenge," says state Rep. Sam Farrington (R–Rochester), who sponsored the bill, which would have also allowed students to carry nonlethal weapons such as pepper spray and mace. Farrington, who graduated from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) last Saturday, says the challenge will be under New Hampshire's "pre-emption statute," which prohibits any "political subdivision" other than the state Legislature from regulating firearms. He thinks that policies that ban guns from campus, imposed by "unelected administrators at public universities," fall into that category.

UNH says that its restrictions were "adopted under authority granted by the Legislature to the Board of Trustees and campus presidents to........

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