Democrats move toward reinstating ban on guns in House chamber, nearby areas

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Democrats took a step yesterday toward banning guns from the House floor, gallery and adjacent areas, over protests from Republicans who said barring weapons from the chamber would leave lawmakers and visitors to the State House less safe.

“I’m a gun owner. I have a permit to carry,” said Rep. Gary Richardson, a Hopkinton Democrat. “But I do not believe that it is appropriate for people to be in the gallery with weapons and fourth-grade students.”

The House Rules Committee’s four Republicans voted against the recommendation to bar guns, which was supported yesterday by the committee’s six Democrats, including Majority Leader Steve Shurtleff of Penacook. Outside the meeting, Rep. JR Hoell, a Dunbarton Republican who isn’t on the rules panel, promised a fight when the full House meets Jan. 2 to consider the change.

Hoell said the gun ban would turn the House into a “killing zone,” adding, “The killings are happening in the places where there’s gun-free zones. It’s time to let people protect themselves and protect others.”

After Republicans won control of the House and Senate in the 2010 election, they lifted a ban on carrying weapons at the State House and Legislative Office Building. That policy hasn’t changed.

But Democrats last month won a majority in the House and are looking to reinstate that chamber’s longtime gun ban; the House rules were changed in 2011 to allow the carrying of concealed weapons in the House chamber, cloakrooms, anterooms and adjacent areas.

In addition to barring guns from the chamber and those nearby areas, Democrats yesterday also proposed striking language that says people are allowed to engage in any “legally permitted exercise of self-defense or defense of others.” But on a 10-0 vote, the rules committee agreed to retain that clause.

“I interpret that to mean that even if someone attacks me, I can’t even defend myself with my fists,” Minority Leader Gene Chandler of Bartlett said of deleting the language.

But there was no such agreement on the gun ban, and panel Republicans were critical of the proposed change.

Hudson Rep. Shawn Jasper said allowing representatives to carry concealed weapons is a deterrent to would-be attackers.

“I think we preclude this from happening when people know we are not just sitting ducks on the floor of the House,” he said.

Greenland Rep. Pam Tucker, who was deputy speaker during the last term, said barring guns from the House would violate the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, and was a “feel-good bill” that can’t be enforced.

“I don’t think we want to create another gun-free zone where violent crimes occur and are committed,” she said. “Do we really want another defenseless zone created, and that being the State House, of all places?”

But Rep. Dan Eaton, a Stoddard Democrat, said armed representatives on the floor wouldn’t be in a position to stop a gunman in the gallery. Eaton is a firearms instructor and former town police chief.

“If you were in the House chamber trying to shoot at the gallery, and you have dead-on sights, . . . the angle and degree of firing changes completely, and you can turn the gallery into a bloodbath and never affect the person that you’re trying to get at,” he said.

Several dozen people turned out for yesterday’s meeting but the committee didn’t take any public testimony, which Shurtleff said was in line with its past practice.

Hoell said he and other Republicans would fight the rule change when the full House meets next month, and some Democrats could break ranks to oppose it. But Rep. Daniel Itse, a Fremont Republican, told reporters he believes it will largely be a party-line vote.

There are 219 Democrats and 179 Republicans in the House, with two seats vacant.

Yesterday’s vote came six days after a gunman killed 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Richardson said the proposed rules change has been in the works for a while and isn’t a response to the Connecticut massacre.

But Hoell said the Democrats are “reacting in emotion,” which he said makes for bad policy.

“They’re concerned for the kids. You’re right, the kids are important,” he said. “The teachers should be carrying, because had the teachers been carrying in Connecticut, it would have been a different story.”

(Ben Leubsdorf can be reached at 369-3307 or bleubsdorf@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @BenLeubsdorf.)