A Republican state representative in Kansas raised some eyebrows on Thursday when he reminded one of his Republican colleagues that he was carrying a gun on him just before she was set to vote on a bill that would have allowed state psychiatric hospitals to bar people from carrying guns inside hospital grounds.

Via Daily Kos, Kansas Rep. John Whitmer sent a message on social media to fellow Republican Rep. Stephanie Clayton telling her that she shouldn’t be scared of having lots of guns in public places because “there’s at least 25 guns on the floor of the House right now!”

ADVERTISEMENT

Clayton posted his message on her Twitter account and said only that, “This is happening to me at work.”

Democratic Kansas state Sen. Laura Kelly responded to Clayton by telling her to ask her party’s leadership to punish Whitmer for what could be deemed a threatening tweet.

“If you had received this from an everyday citizen, the Capitol police would be all over it,” she wrote. “Your leadership needs to sanction him.”

ADVERTISEMENT

If you had received this from an everyday citizen, the Capitol police would be all over it. Your leadership needs to sanction him. #ksleg — Laura Kelly (@LauraKellyKS) June 2, 2017

The reason that Kansas’s legislature had to vote to keep guns out of hospitals was due to a new provision in the state’s concealed carry law that was set to take effect on July 1 this year. According to the Associated Press, the law would have required “such facilities to allow concealed guns inside starting July 1 if the buildings don’t have extra security measures such as guards and metal detectors.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Regardless of Whitmer’s antics, the Kansas House passed the measure restricting guns in state mental hospitals by a veto-proof margin of 91 to 33.