CONCORD — Republicans in the New Hampshire House voted Tuesday to bar the state from enforcing any new federal gun limits.
Prior to the final 190-147 vote, the state’s former top judicial official, Windham Rep. Bob Lynn, was rebuked for attacking President Joe Biden.
In addition to being the former chief justice of New Hampshire’s Supreme Court, Lynn is an avid marksman. And in his floor remarks backing the ban on allowing state or local police to enforce gun policies which are not on the books in New Hampshire, Lynn took aim at the Biden administration.
“The present administration in Washington regards the Second Amendment as a pesky nuisance, that it would repeal in a heartbeat if it had the power to do so,” Lynn said. “But since it doesn’t have that power, he has set about a course of legislative and regulatory proposals, the aim of which is to effectively emasculate the Second Amendment.”
House rules for debate forbid ascribing motives to anyone.
Durham Rep. Marjorie Smith, a Democrat, took to the floor to assert that Lynn’s remarks crossed that line.
“The previous speaker very definitely did ascribe, to the President of the United States, and many others, motives that may or may not be accurate,” Smith said.
House Speaker Sherman Packard said he agreed.
“Unfortunately, it was said before I got a chance to say anything, because I didn’t know it was going to be said,” Packard told the House.
“The rest of his testimony was without malice, I believe,” Packard added.
Lynn has faced criticism for flouting House norms in this regard before and has chalked it up to his inexperience as a lawmaker.
Lynn spent nearly three decades as a judge but has been a representative for just one term.
If the House-backed bill becomes law, New Hampshire would join several other Republican-led states in enacting state laws that aim to blunt any new federal gun limitations.
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