Today, gun rights groups are celebrating victory here in Missouri. On September 14, the Missouri legislature, with the forceful backing of the National Rifle Association, approved a measure to allow anyone in Missouri to carry a gun without training, a permit or license and without even proving they had any knowledge on how to use it. Align with this the approved measures to legalize lifetime “right” to carry a weapon no matter your age and altered a law to allow offer legal protection for gun owners who shoot another person they believe is threatening them. Crushing their Democratic opponents, the Republican super majority overrode the Missouri’s Democratic governor’s veto, dismantling a permitting system the state had spent years refining to better protect their citizens.
For many Missourians, the clearest responsibility of their government it to promote safety in their communities. Legislators have for years done that by refining the permitting process for carrying a firearm in public. For years the legislature has sought to simplify the permitting process and broaden those allowed to apply while still maintaining the original goal of training, teaching and testing Missourians who seek to carry weapons in public. They have supported the responsibility and autonomy of local sheriffs to determine if individuals were allowed to receive a permit to carry. This week was a sudden reversal from Missouri’s Republican majority and one which is likely to increase gun violence, and firearm deaths across the state. Ignoring the protests of Democrats, county sheriffs and hundreds of law enforcement officers, they ripped up years of permitting legislation and safety protections under the guise promoting some nebulous constitutional right as if any restriction was a violation of constitutional principles. All our rights are restricted in some way or another, from Freedom of Press and Speech, to Freedom of Religion and Privacy. These limitations are designed to promote the safe and responsible exercise of those rights, not the cessation of their practice.
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Gun laws work. It a fact. Yet like climate change, vacancies and fracking for oil, where the science is also extremely clear, some Americans refuse to believe in facts. That does not cease to make them less factual. States which require background checks before purchasing guns experience less gun crime. Fact. States which require gun owners to go through training are safer. Fact. States with more stringent limitations on where and who can carry are safer. Fact. These states across the United States with stronger gun laws are not attacking the rights of citizens to protect themselves or attempting to remove owners of their guns. If you do not want to take my word for it there are plenty of research to support the conclusion that loosened gun laws precipitate rises in gun violence. (See this and this). The goal (and the outcome) of stronger gun laws is always the protection of our citizens especially the most venerable among us from those who wish to do harm. On Wednesday, Missouri’s legislators abdicated their most basic responsibly and placing Missourians in unnecessary danger.
Our nation has been forced to mourn, repeatedly, those who have died due to mass gun violence in recent years. We have sat and watched children die at Sandy Hook Elementary, and seen regular Americans killed on the streets of San Bernardino, Orlando, Aurora, Chicago, Washington and Detroit. We can no longer sit and allow the adrenaline-fueled desires of a few gun advocates to jeopardize the safety of millions of Americans and Missourians. The decision by Missouri lawmakers to again loosen gun laws is misguided, saddening and certainly one which will hurt Missourians.
