Lawmaker Drops Gun During Meeting

A House committee meeting almost started with a real bang.

State Rep. Kyle Tasker, R-Nottingham, dropped his gun at the start of a House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee meeting Tuesday and it sounded with a "clang," Rep. Stephen Shurtleff, D-Concord, told The Huffington Post.

Tasker reportedly told people nearby that he had just given blood and may have been light-headed.

"I was glad it was his blood that he was giving and no someone else's," Shurtleff told The Huffington Post.

Tasker himself said the gun sounded with a "clunk" when it hit the floor, and had it not been for the sound, no one would have noticed, he told the Union Leader. He told the newspaper that the gun was a loaded M911 pistol, but that it was "drop safe."

Facebook has been buzzing about the gun drop all afternoon.

The incident occurred as the committee was going to take up an "informed consent" bill that would require a 24-hour wait before a woman could get an abortion.

The Republican-controlled House overturned a ban on weapons at the Statehouse in 2011. At that time, Shurtleff argued unsuccessfully against lifting the prohibition, which Democrats had been in place for 40 years.