A certified election observer in Washington freaked some people out when he showed up to his county auditor’s office last month carrying a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol, but the law’s the law.

Election workers in Clark County, Wash. had expressed misgivings over Gerald “Rick” Halle’s decision to work last month’s primary while wearing his weapon, but the “state has preempted the area of regulating firearms,” Chris Horn, the county’s chief civil deputy prosecutor, told The Columbian.

The were no incidents with Halle, who apparently wears his firearm on his hip every day, but the county staff members will ask election observers in the future “to voluntarily put their firearm in a newly purchased gun safe,” according to the Columbian.

If they should decline, county auditor Greg Kimsey, a Republican, said that “they will still be welcome to carry out their responsibility.”

From the Columbian: