When a governor vetos a bill, that’s usually an indication that it’ll be a cold day in hell before that bill ever becomes law while he’s in office. After all, vetos aren’t things governors are going to do that often, especially when the opposition party controls the legislature. If they do it, they want to make it clear that such bills are off the table.

Yet that’s not the case in New Hampshire.

It seems that Governor Chris Sununu vetoes a slew of gun control bills last year but has invited the legislature to resubmit them.

At the suggestion of the same governor who thwarted their gun control efforts last session, Democrats have reintroduced identical legislation, which inflamed passions again Wednesday in its first hearing of the 2020 session.

Last year, Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed five bills impacting the rights of firearm owners sent to his desk by the Democratically led Legislature. A solid Republican minority upheld all the vetoes.

Nonetheless, his staff said he “wanted to keep the conversation going,” said State Rep. Katherine Rogers, D-Concord.

So Rogers returned with the same bill as last year. HB 1101 would impose a three-day waiting period before someone could take home a purchased firearm.

“A waiting period will not stop all acts of senseless violence, every suicide, and sadly it won’t prevent every shooting, but does that mean we just stand by and watch the violence continue?” Rogers asked the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.

“For those of you who say New Hampshire is the safest place on the planet, take off your glasses and read the headlines. We do have violence in this state.”

Sure, New Hampshire has violence, but so does every gun controlled place on this planet. If gun control were the answer to violence, that wouldn’t be the case.

Yet despite–or because of–fairly lax gun control laws in the state, New Hampshire is one of the safest states in the country. I wouldn’t recommend monkeying around with that.

Of course, this has to come as a blow for gun rights activists in the Granite State. They were able to fend off the attack last year, only to have the governor invite them back for round two.

Why would he do that?

It’s possible that Sununu is really just hoping to veto the bills a second time, that he wants another chance at slapping them down. If that’s the case, I have to say that I can respect that reason. I don’t think it’s necessarily a good move, but I can respect it.

Otherwise, though, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Unless, of course, what Sununu actually wanted was a different set of gun control bills and what he’s getting is the same thing, different bill number. That’s still troubling, but the upside is that if that is the case, the anti-gun lawmakers were apparently too stupid to read the tea leaves.

Either way, though, gun rights activists in New Hampshire need to dig in and dust off their pearl necklaces.