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The Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) says its officers at Missouri airports discovered a total of 85 firearms in travelers’ carry-on luggage in 2020, despite a dramatic reduction of travelers because of the coronavirus global pandemic.
Since each of the firearms was discovered by TSA officers during the routine screening of carry-on property at airport security checkpoints, the agency taped a demonstration for Missourinet at Kansas City International Airport:
Kansas City Mayor Sly James says gun control and violence was a hot topic at the annual conference of mayors. James has strong opinions on how to solve the problem … local control.
The Center for American Progress says Missouri ranks eighth in the nation for gun violence. The report contains some startling statistics, stating that in 2010, 62 children were killed with guns in Missouri, and had the fourth highest homicide rate with firearms in the nation. That’s 56 percent above the national average. Read the full report HERE. (Missouri statistics are on Page 57.)
Kansas City Mayor Sly James says taking illegal guns away is not an option.
“I’d like to have the ability to do something in our metropolitan area to address the issue of illegal guns, but our hands are tied,” he says. “State governments are always railing on the federal government for wanting to control them and they don’t want that, but then state governments turn around and do the same thing with cities.”
James says gun control policies must take different areas and demographics into consideration to be effective.
“This is not a one-size-fits-all situation,” he says. “What happens in Kansas City and St. Louis is not the same thing that happens in Joplin and Springfield. We need to address that. I don’t think it’s any great mystery as to why we have more homicides than other areas. It’s because we can’t do anything about the instruments used in those homicides.”
The Center for American Progress report says that in 2009, Missouri sold almost 600 guns that went on to be used in crimes in other states. And while it ranks Missouri eighth in the nation for gun violence, it puts our state fifth in the nation for aggravated assault with a firearm.
AUDIO: James talks with Jessica Machetta about gun violence (1:42)
AUDIO: Jessica Machetta reports (1:13)
On the same day the U.S. Senate rejected an expansion of background checks for gun purchases, the Missouri House of Representatives has advanced two gun rights bills.
A bill (HB 170) sponsored by Rep. Casey Guernsey (R-Bethany) would make laws passed after Jan. 1, 2013 that ban, restrict ownership or require registration of a gun or magazine unenforceable in Missouri and would make it a Class D felony to attempt to enforce them.
A separate measure (HB 436) sponsored by Rep. Doug Funderburk (R-St. Peters) would make any law that infringes on the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution invalid according to state law.
Guernsey says of his bill it is one he never thought he’d have to sponsor.
“We as a legislative body in Missouri are going to have to put ourselves between the citizens of Missouri and the federal government when it comes to one of our most basic, fundamental, constitutional rights, that of our Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms,” Guernsey said.
Rep. Stacey Newman (D-St. Louis) said Guernsey’s bill is unconstitutional.
“You talk to any lawyer that’s standing here … they’ll tell you that this bill basically benefits the trial lawyers,” Newman said. “It just gives them something else to contest in court because we all know that this bill is not going to hold any muster.”
Supporters and opponents of the bills expressed outrage at various parts of one another’s arguments. Rep. Margo McNeil (D-Florissant) cited incidents of gun violence.
“I feel that what is really outrageous is 20 children killed in Sandy Hook [Conn.] not too long ago, and six adults,” she said. “What is outrageous is 61 mass shootings since Columbine [Colo.] in 1999. What is outrageous is 17 bullets in one six-year-old’s body. That’s what’s outrageous.”
AUDIO: McNeil’s floor remarks (1:42)
Rep. Paul Curtman (R-Pacific) countered by saying it is outrageous that state or federal lawmakers would try to infringe on Missourians’ Second Amendment rights.
“If you were to go back in time 230-some years and look at a dictionary, the word ‘infringe’ would say something along the lines of ‘to corrupt’ or ‘to corrode,’ so anything that the federal government does to restrict the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, in fact, an infringement, and therefore unconstitutional,” he said.
AUDIO: Curtman’s floor remarks (3:27)
An amendment was adopted on Funderburk’s bill that would allow school districts to designate school protection officers. These would be teachers or administrators that would be allowed to carry concealed guns on school grounds. It was sponsored by Rep. Rick Brattin (R-Harrisonville).
“They would have to have a valid concealed carry weapons permit and also go through post-commission training … basically police officer training … this is a way of protecting our schools and our children where it matters most, at our most vulnerable areas of our society,” Brattin said.
Brattin’s proposal drew more response from Newman, who tweeted, “It’s NRA night in MO House. What’s next? Arming kids?”
Other provisions between the two bills would lower the age to be eligible to apply for a concealed carry weapons permit from 21 to 19 and allow permit holders to open carry, bar the publishing of gun owner lists, prevent medical practitioners from asking gun ownership status of patients and exempt individuals from federal background checks in private gun transactions.
Both packages would advance to the Senate with another favorable vote.
The state House has approved a bill to let state employees keep guns concealed and locked in their vehicles while parked on state property.
Representative Jeanie Riddle (photo courtesy; Tim Bommel, Missouri House Communications)
The bill was opposed on the floor by Representative Jeremy LaFaver (D-Kansas City), who expressed concern about state employees at colleges and universities having guns in their vehicles.
“That creates for a less safe environment, whereas you are trying to create a more safe environment.”
The bill is sponsored by Representative Jeanie Riddle (R-Mokane), who says it’s about those state employees defending themselves going to and from work.
“There are [state employees] who work here in Jefferson City or elsewhere in the state that drive long distances home or to and from work, either way, and they have no way to defend themselves, and that’s what this bill is about. Giving them the same rights that other Missouri citizens have.”
The bill passed out of the House on a bipartisan 126-25 vote.
Four urban Democrats in the House are backing a bill that would force Missourians to give up certain firearms.
Representative Rory Ellinger (D-University City)
The proposal sponsored by Representative Rory Ellinger (D-University City) would set into Missouri law a definition of “assault weapons,” including any semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine, a pistol that holds more than ten rounds in its magazine or a shotgun with a pistol grip. It then requires anyone who owns such a gun in Missouri to get it out of the state, make it permanently non-functional or turn it over to law enforcement.
The bill would make keeping such a gun or making one or a magazine holding more than ten rounds a class “C” felony.