VALLEY, Ala. — It’s no surprise that a GOP Senate candidate in Alabama supports the right to bear arms. But it is surprising when the candidate pulls out his wife’s pistol to prove it.

“We carry,” former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore said at the Chambers County Republican Club’s candidate meeting on Thursday, after one woman asked the candidates about their views of the Second Amendment.

Moore then slipped his wife Kayla’s handgun out of her purse. He was seated at the edge of the audience’s front row, and he quickly handed it to his wife who put it back in her bag. So it was likely not visible to most of the people sitting behind him. But the move elicited exclamations of surprise and some laughter from those at the front of the meeting room who could see the weapon.

“I will uphold the Second Amendment,” Moore later added.