HANOVER, N.H. (AP) - Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Steve Marchand said Monday that a loved one’s recent suicide attempt has strengthened his support for sweeping gun control measures.
Marchand, a former Portsmouth mayor, faced his challenger Molly Kelly at a forum at Dartmouth College. The two are competing for a chance to take on first-term Republican Gov. Chris Sununu.
Marchand earlier this year released a detailed plan aimed at preventing suicides, homicides, domestic violence and mass shootings.
Part of his plan includes instituting a universal background check system, a 48-hour waiting period for new gun purchases and banning assault rifles and bump stocks. The waiting period is critical when it comes to suicide, he said Monday, noting that 93 percent of gun deaths in New Hampshire in the last two years were suicide. And he said someone very close to him had made an attempt during the course of the campaign.
“It has changed everything about my family’s life. I’ve spent a lot of time in mental health facilities as a family member learning on a firsthand basis about that, and I believe if there had been a gun in the house, I think the outcome would’ve been different,” he said. “I believed this as public policy before and now it’s personal.”
The question about gun violence was one of several in which Marchand sought to argue that the current political climate calls for bold vision rather than compromise. But Kelly, a former three-term state senator from Harrisville, emphasized her experience, including working with U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan, both of whom have endorsed her.
“I’ve worked with them a long time,” she said. “They understand that what I do well is I solve problems by bringing the right people together.”
Kelly said she is most proud of her work championing public education and supporting women’s reproductive rights. And she indirectly criticized Marchand’s lack of experience.
“Being progressive and being bold is not new to me. It’s been what I’ve been doing my entire life,” she said.
Asked how she would heal the “ideological chasm” between Democrats and Republicans, Kelly described the importance of listening and compromising, without compromising one’s values.
Marchand rejected that approach.
“The way to get progressive solutions that are going to make this an amazing place to live is not going to be by persuading Chris Sununu and Donald Trump. It will only come by replacing Chris Sununu and Donald Trump,” he said. “We must make the argument with force, and we must win the argument.”
Kelly got in the race in April, more than a year after Marchand, who ran an unsuccessful campaign in 2016. The primary election is Sept. 11.
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