Live Free Or Not: NH GOP Lawmakers Threaten Lawsuit Over House “Deadly Weapons” Ban

The right to keep and bear arms in the New Hampshire House has been limited a bit after the Democrat-controlled legislature recently passed Rule 63. That rule now bans legislators, and anyone else except active police and security personnel, from carrying "deadly weapons" such as hand guns in the "House Chamber, anterooms, cloakrooms, or House gallery." The ban, however, is a reinstatement of an old rule that had been overturned in 2015 when the Republicans controlled the House.

As a consequence of the newly-reinstated ban, Republican legislators have considered a lawsuit and presented a draft of it to NH House Speaker Steve Shurtleff (D); they contend that Rule 63 violates the 2nd-Amendment rights of gun-owning legislators and the visiting public.