Guns Gone Wild

For many years, the National Rifle Association has warned that laws regulating guns represent a “slippery slope” that can only end in the confiscation of all firearms by the government.

In Missouri, the NRA got it half right. There’s a slippery slope on the legislative front, but it’s sliding in the opposite direction. We’re heading toward having no gun restrictions at all.

In case you missed the news while debating the creepy notion that citizens might need to pack weaponry to brave a visit to the Saint Louis Zoo, no fewer than 26 firearms bills were introduced in the state legislature this session. Almost all of them are designed to encourage proliferation of gun ownership.

This is taking place less than two years after the NRA engineered the Measure to End All Gun Measures (Amendment 5), a constitutional amendment passed by voters in 2014 that made gun ownership an “unalienable right.” Its stated purpose was to thwart any future attempt to restrict the spread (or sanctity) of guns and ammunition.

If you think that might have been enough to feed this particular beast, you don’t know your NRA politics. The landmark victory—championed by Republicans but only meekly opposed by Democrats—did not merely end discussion of gun control in the public square. Instead, it sounded the opening bell for a new effort to repeal any of the modest restrictions that had seemingly mitigated the notion that thousands more would be packing heat.

To say the Second Amendment is an unlimited right for which there can be no regulation is akin to saying the First Amendment free-speech provisions should mean it’s legal to threaten to kill someone or incite a riot.  A balance must be struck between people’s right to self-defense and the public’s sense of security.

One of the linchpins of selling concealed-carry legislation, for example, has always been the restriction of permits to individuals who complete a serious regimen of training in firearms use and safety. So here comes Rep. Eric Burlison (R–NRA/Springfield) with HB 1468 (similar to a bill that he proposed last session), which would eliminate the need for permits altogether.

The spirit of this bill dovetails nicely with HB 2182, introduced by Rep. Andrew McDaniel (R–NRA/Deering), which would exempt people with concealed-carry permits from suffering the indignity of having to abide by federal background-check laws in making a firearm purchase from a federal gun dealer.

Burlison is among those advancing the NRA’s rebranded concept of “constitutional carry,” through which citizens may pack heat—concealed or openly displayed—pretty much anywhere outside a narrowly defined group of places that are exempt. And, of course, there is movement to force the number of exempted places toward zero, with bills in this session demanding that guns be allowed on college campuses and public transportation systems.

Can you imagine how unsafe you’d feel on a campus or on a light-rail train or at the zoo or other public places if a group of teens carrying AK-47s on their shoulders—or handguns in holsters—suddenly came in close proximity to you and your kids? How are you supposed to know whether these are “good guys with a gun” or “bad guys with a gun”?

If you think the latter and you’re carrying your own concealed weapon, at what point do you draw your weapon on them? And at what point do you discharge that weapon? And if you do discharge it, how might that impact innocent bystanders?

In the name of the Second Amendment, the NRA wants college kids and schoolteachers and random people riding on buses and trains to be empowered to make these impossible decisions, regardless of the risk posed to the general public. In the NRA’s warped worldview, one person’s gun rights override all other citizens’ safety and personal sense of security.

To say the Second Amendment is an unlimited right for which there can be no regulation is akin to saying the First Amendment free-speech provisions should mean it’s legal to threaten to kill someone or incite a riot.  A balance must be struck between people’s right to self-defense and the public’s sense of security.

There’s also a matter of accountability. When voters passed Amendment 5, it was on the widespread assumption that firearms safety training was part of  the deal. And so was the notion that convicted felons wouldn’t be able to get guns.

But the NRA is on a mission to renege on all that.  Their proxies introduced a series of bills last year to  water down (or even eliminate) training requirements and, incredibly, to allow convicted felons to get guns. The bills didn’t pass, so they’re back again this session. And the slippery slope gets slicker.

This year, HB 1828, introduced by Rep. Joe Don McGaugh (R–NRA/Carrollton), would grant automatic gun-rights restoration to any nonviolent felon once that person completed confinement, probation, and parole. Worse, it provides a judicial path for all violent felons—murderers and sex offenders included—to seek full restoration of their sacred Second Amendment rights if just three years have passed since their crimes were committed (with completion of probation and parole and no additional felony). Even a new class A misdemeanor wouldn’t automatically stand between a convicted murderer and his Second Amendment rights.

And get this: So as not to be unfair to convicted murderers and rapists, this bill would would allow them to apply for restoration of their gun rights in their home counties (and not necessarily the places where they committed their violent felonies). Presumably this would help poor violent felons who live in pro-gun counties get a fairer shake than if they had to go before a judge in the county where they, say, killed someone with a gun.

The majesty of this insanity is captured beautifully in McGaugh’s bill summary, which refers to the convicted felon as an “individual who has been deprived of his or her civil right to ship, transport, possess or receive a firearm because of a conviction for a felony.”

At one time, the Republican Party prided itself for its hard line on crime. Why and when did it decide to become the party of compassion and leniency for convicted felons?

Burlison argues that making people pay for a concealed-carry permit is the equivalent of a poll tax on voters. And channeling his inner progressive, he speaks about how we all agree that poll taxes are wrong. (This will not, of course, deter Burlison and fellow Republicans from fighting for photo ID requirements for voters that effectively serve as 21st-century poll taxes.)

When the session mercifully comes to an end in mid-May, you can expect the traditional outcome: Most of the measures will have gone nowhere except to fill their sponsors’ mission of paying homage to their NRA overlords. At least a bill or two will be sent to Gov. Jay Nixon’s desk to dare him to veto more armaments for Missouri, also for the purpose of satiating the gun lobby.

Most likely, the NRA will enjoy some progress in its mission of adding armaments to the nation that’s already more armed than nearly all of the other civilized countries in the world combined. And to what end? I understand that people are frightened about violent crime, even as overall crime rates have dropped substantially in the past two decades. There are certainly pockets of horrific murder rates, as we see in the city of St. Louis. Nearly every week, the nation endures still another mass killing.

I’ll admit it: I’m one of the dinosaurs who believes we’d actually have less violent crime if we didn’t have more guns than people. Our country has exponentially higher gun ownership than virtually all other civilized nations, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that our rates of violent crime and suicides track along with it.

But I also think it would be totally unjustified to ban all guns. I think people have an absolute right to own firearms in their homes or for hunting and other gun sports. That doesn’t mean you’re entitled to own military weapons for these purposes, be they assault rifles or grenade launchers.

It’s amazing that we’ve come to a place—largely thanks to NRA propaganda—in which that’s considered an extreme anti–Second Amendment view. But even though I don’t think reducing lethal armaments will guarantee any particular tragedy will not occur, it certainly offers better odds for success than thinking some teacher is going to stop the next crazed mass murderer or that MetroLink will be safer because a bunch of strangers are packing weapons, presumably ready to be discharged at a second’s notice.

Of course, that’s my very urban view of the world. And the gun lobby would be quick to dismiss that sort of rhetoric as your typical anti-American, anti–Second Amendment liberal rant. So forget what I think. Instead, consider what happened last December in a little town called West Plains, in rural southern Missouri. There, a veteran named James Collins, just discharged from the Army, showed up at a Christmas parade with an AR-15 rifle over his shoulder.

And guess what? The good folks of West Plains didn’t like it. Now, Mr. Collins had done nothing wrong. He carried his weapon legally. He didn’t threaten anyone. In fairness, he was described as being in  a position ready to shoot—but that’s what is needed if you’re the good guy with a gun stopping the bad guy with a gun. He has no known criminal record, and he presumably was honorably discharged after serving our country.

But the people—right there in the heart of NRA country—were frightened enough by this law-abiding veteran exercising his Second Amendment rights that they complained to police. The police politely asked him to leave, which he did, but that’s not what is supposed to happen in the NRA’s view of the world. He should have fit right in.

“You have a right to carry your firearm,” said West Plains police chief Jeff Head. “And people have the right to go to the Christmas parade without being frightened.”

That’s why we need to get off the slippery slope.

SLM co-owner Ray Hartmann is a panelist on KETC Channel 9’s Donnybrook, which airs Thursdays at 7 p.m.