Legislation that would allow the concealed carrying of guns in churches and other places of worship with a concealed carry permit will be heard Monday evening by a Missouri House committee in Jefferson City.
State Rep. Ben Baker, R-Neosho, speaks on the Missouri House floor in Jefferson City on February 3, 2021 (photo courtesy of Tim Bommel at House Communications)
The House General Laws Committee will hear testimony from State Rep. Ben Baker, R-Neosho. Baker’s House bill 359 is five pages long, and it’s similar to 2020 legislation.
Baker represents Neosho and Newton County in the Missouri House. Southwest Missouri’s Neosho was the scene of a high-profile deadly church shooting in August 2007.
Eiken Elam Saimon is serving three life sentences without parole for killing three people at the First Congregational Church in downtown Neosho. Four others inside the church were wounded.
The “Joplin Globe” reports Saimon pleaded guilty to first degree murder and assault charges. The newspaper reports Saimon walked into the church in 2007 with a semiautomatic pistol and a 22-caliber handgun and opened fire, before taking 20 church members hostage in a sanctuary and threatening to kill one every 30 minutes.
The “Joplin Globe” reports he was stopped when law enforcement officers stormed the sanctuary.
Saimon is incarcerated at the maximum-security South Central Correctional Center in southern Missouri’s Licking.
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