| The Republican Senate candidate posed for photos alongside Jon Stone, whose police disciplinary file detailed his conduct with a 15-year-old student and threats to massacre his own department, two years after Kelly Ayotte campaigned at the same Claremont gun shop. |
Former US Sen. John E. Sununu, the Republican candidate for US Senate, posted photos Tuesday from a campaign swing that included a stop at a New Hampshire gun shop where he posed alongside Jon Stone, the former state representative whose disciplinary records revealed threats to murder Claremont’s police chief, rape the chief’s wife and children, and carry out a mass shooting at the city’s police station.
Stone runs Black Op Arms, a firearms store in Claremont.
“Great stops on the campaign trail in Newport and Claremont!” Sununu’s campaign wrote in the post.
A second photo posted to Facebook shows Sununu and Stone, with Stone showing Sununu a gun at the shop’s counter, in front of a wall of rifles.
The appearance was first flagged by Steven Porter, New Hampshire reporter for the Boston Globe, who identified Stone in the photos and noted that Stone’s former police colleagues had reported comments about killing them and raping the chief’s family, with several worried he might go “postal.”
Stone, suspended as a Claremont officer over his yearlong conduct with a high school student—conduct that began when the student was 15—and the subject of at least 14 internal affairs reports, is on the Republican primary ballot for Sept. 8 seeking a return to the New Hampshire House.
Despite that record, Stone remains an influential figure in the New Hampshire Republican Party, chairing the Sullivan County Republican Committee and served as President Donald Trump’s Sullivan County presidential campaign chair in 2024.
Sununu is the second Republican running statewide to make a campaign appearance at Stone’s Claremont shop.
Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R) posted photos from Black Op Arms in March 2024, weeks before Stone’s records became public, and never removed his endorsement from her campaign’s list of backers as the controversy built during her run for governor.
Sununu’s flaunting of his visit with Stone, a high-profile, extremely problematic figure in New Hampshire state politics highlights an increasing division between Republicans and Democrats nationally.
As Democrats continue to push out members credibly accused of abuse and sexual violence in private life, Republicans close ranks around and embrace candidates credibly accused of intimate partner violence and abuse of family members..
In an interview with InDepthNH published this week about his House bid, Stone dismissed the allegations from nearly 20 years ago, saying voters care about property taxes and safety, and adding, “I’ve never been afraid of a tough political fight.”
