Our friends in Wilton Peace Action are singing the praises of the state Legislature, which last week passed a ban on bringing guns into Representatives Hall. We join the chorus.

Guns in the Legislature was always a bad idea that was emphasized when a Milford representative had hers fall out of her bag and onto the Legislature floor, near children, at a hearing on full-day kindergarten.

Oops. Fortunately, it didn’t go off. That would have been a bit too much emphasis on the need for a ban.

But now we have one.

For more on this issue go to:

https://www.nhpr.org/post/lawmakers-activists-ready-vote-nh-state-house-gun-ban#stream/0

Or you can go to the webiste of Granite State Progress at:

Gun Violence Prevention Advocates Applaud NH House Vote to Keep Guns Out of State House Chambers and Gallery

It is Granite State Progress that is helping the push for what it calls “a package of common sense gun violence prevention laws.”

Reasonable people can differ over the definition of common sense, but that is why we elect supposedly reasonable people – so they can come to common sense resolutions that make the most sense for the people of this state.

Neither we nor Wilton Peace Action nor Granite State Progress have an interest in banning guns. This is a hunting state. It always has been and always will be, despite the fact that fewer and fewer young people are hunters.

But banning things like bump stocks or keeping guns out of the hands of people who are facing domestic violence charges – and that includes removing guns from their homes – would fit our definition of common sense.

On another issue, nine days from now, folks in this area will be participating in the third annual women’s march, called Women’s Wave, and Wilton Peace Action will be hosting an event on Jan. 19 starting at noon in the town’s Main Street Park. The event is called Women’s Wave in Wilton and we hope some of you will join in this year.

When the first women’s march took place and an event was held in Wilton, we were impressed by the turnout but skeptical that the early momentum – locally and nationally – would hold. We’re happy to say our skepticism was not well-founded.

Still, we do lament the apparent split in some quarters of the women’s movement with some women of color questioning the participation of Jewish women. As WBUR radio reported:

“As organizers prepare for another Women’s March later this month, there’s a split in the movement between some women of color and former march leader Vanessa Wruble, who says she feels she was forced out of the group’s leadership in part because she is Jewish.

“The rift has gotten more public exposure after a recent story in The New York Times reported that early on in planning efforts, fellow leaders Tamika Mallory, a black activist, and Carmen Perez, a Latina activist, told Wruble that Jews need to confront their own role in racism.”

We’re not going to comment on the absurdity, except to remind anyone who needs reminding that the Civil Rights Movement of the early 1960s wouldn’t have gotten far without the participation of Jewish men and women, and that of the three Civil Rights workers murdered in Mississippi – Andrew Goodman and Michael “Mickey” Schwerner from New York City, and James Chaney from Meridian, Mississippi – Goodman and Schwerner were Jewish.

Jews marched and bled and died for black rights and continue to do so. There is no need for this split in the women’s movement and it is destructive.

The marches are about all women and all women should be welcomed. They certainly will be in Wilton.