Republican lawmaker from Milford becomes first woman to drop loaded gun at State House
State Rep. Carolyn Halstead has become the first woman to join the ranks of Granite State lawmakers who have accidentally dropped a loaded firearm at the State House.
Kathleen Ronayne reported the second term Republican from Milford was rushing to take her seat during a House Education Committee meeting today when her backpack caught the handgun and knocked it from her waistband. Halstead quietly retrieved her gun without disturbing the children who were seated nearby, Ronayne noted.
Halstead joins a list of Republican lawmakers for whom “carrying” at the State House is not always a literal term.
Rep. Kyle Tasker made national headlines in 2012 when he droppedhis gun, one of two he was carrying at the time, during a House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee meeting. He told onlookers that he had given blood that morning and was feeling “loopy.”
It was not his first gun-dropping incident. Rep. Gary Hopper (R-Weare) tells a story of the time Tasker dropped his handgun as he was walking down the stairs to a tunnel that connects the Legislative Office Building and the State House. “He goes, ‘Oh, I guess the safety was on’ and laughed and went and picked it up,” Hopper said.
Tasker’s antics called to mind another incident involving Rep. George Lambert (R-Litchfield). In a statement, the New Hampshire Democratic Party joked that “perhaps Representative Tasker has taken his gun safety lessons from Representative George Lambert, who was seen picking up his holster and gun after they fell off while he was standing outside the State house last year.”
And yet another gun-dropping episode was described by Rep. Chuck Townsend (D-Canaan) in 2012, who said a gun belonging to Rep. Paul Mirski (R-Enfield) fell to the floor during a House Redistricting Committee meeting. “He didn’t notice and we sat watching his pistol on the floor pointing at us through the entire meeting,” Townsend wrote.
Rep. John Burt (R-Goffstown) says it’s all pretty routine. “Up at the State House it happens occasionally, you know, because we’re all armed,” he explains.