Being a deep blue city in a very red state has long made it tricky for St. Louis to put any sort of gun control laws on the books. One law where the city had managed to thread the needle was the so-called “unattended vehicle” ordinance, which required people who left firearms in their cars unattended to store them in a locked, out-of-sight container.
But on Tuesday, Judge Joseph P. Whyte ruled that the ordinance runs afoul of state law, specifically one barring a city or county in the state from regulating anything to do with the “use, keeping, possession…and transportation” of guns. The city is now barred from enforcing it.
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Whyte’s order was born from a lawsuit filed last November by city resident Michael Roth challenging both the unattended vehicle ordinance, and one requiring people to report any theft of a firearm to police within 48 hours.
The month prior to the lawsuit’s filing, Roth’s 9mm pistol was stolen from his car while he was attending Sunday Mass at the Cathedral Basilica in the Central West End. When he reported the theft to police, they cited him for not having his gun in a locked container.
Roth’s attorney Matt Vianello previously told SLM that the state legislature has the authority on guns for good reason. They need to be uniform across Missouri so people aren’t “subject to different rules just because they crossed a street,” he said.
Attorneys for the city argued that the prohibition on cities and counties regulating guns is hardly all-encompassing and that state law acknowledges several ways municipal governments can pass ordinances directly pertaining to firearms
But Whyte ultimately agreed with Vianello.
“If the city decides to appeal, I expect the result will be the same,” the attorney says.
The requirement to report the theft of a firearm to police remains in place. Vianello tells SLM that he took issue with it only insofar as it interacted with the unattended vehicle ordinance—his argument being that anyone forced to report the theft of an unattended firearm from a vehicle was, in essence, being forced to incriminate themselves. But with the unattended vehicle ordinance no more, that point is moot.
Both the unattended vehicle and reporting ordinances were designed to curb the trafficking of stolen guns.
St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Mitch McCoy says that even with the unattended vehicle ordinance no longer in effect, the police don’t want people leaving guns in their cars regardless, as thieves searching for guns is the primary driver of car break-ins. “If you know that you’re coming to downtown and you’re not able to bring your firearm inside, leave your firearm at home,” he says. “Because we know that’s primarily what individuals are looking for.”
