MO: Missouri House OKs bill to let concealed carry permit holders bring guns on public transit
By Ezra Bitterman
Source St. Louis Post-Dispatch (TNS)
On a party-line vote, the Missouri House approved legislation Thursday allowing Missourians with concealed carry permits to bring guns on public transit.
The legislation, which now heads to the Senate, also lowers the minimum age for concealed carry permit holders from 19 to 18.
Permit holders can currently carry weapons in much of the state with only a few exceptions, including schools, polling places and religious institutions.
Under the proposal, public transit, including Metro Transit buses and trains in the St. Louis metropolitan area, would be removed from that list.
“It’s about time we let those people who use public transportation to exercise the same rights as everyone else in our state,” Rep. Tim Taylor, R- Speed, the legislation’s sponsor said.
The debate was fiery, but it was also emotional, with several members recounting their own experiences with gun violence.
“When I hear a bill that allows kids as young as 18 to conceal carry around our state, what I hear is kids at my stepdaughter’s high school will have even more access to firearms, even more access at a time when access is exactly the problem,” said House Minority Floor Leader Ashley Aune, D- Kansas City.
She then argued the Legislature should institute red flag laws that give courts the power to take away guns from people deemed a danger to themselves or others. Missouri Republicans have staunchly opposed such measures.
“The people don’t want this, the Second Amendment zealots do,” Aune said.
Rep. Jim Schulte, R- New Bloomfield, called it “disgusting” to blame gun violence on the prevalence of guns. “It’s not about a gun or a bullet. It’s about a mental health crisis we are facing.”
Rep Yolanda Young, D- Kansas City, contended that public transit, where people are confined in a tight space, is not the right place for firearms. “We can’t solve violence with more violence,” Young said. She added that her son was a victim of gun violence.
For the House, the gun debate was a painful reminder of last year’s mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade. Leadership shut down debate on a guns-on-transit bill last year after the tragedy.
“It was many of us in this chamber who were in a mass shooting with (our) families,” LaKeySha Bosley, D- St. Louis said.
Every Republican present in the chamber and two Democrats voted for the bill.
If instituted, it’s unclear how implementation would work in St. Louis, where public transit serves both Missouri and Illinois residents. It’s currently illegal to bring guns on Illinois public transit. However, a federal judge ruled the Illinois law is unconstitutional. The case is currently on appeal.
In the Senate, a similar proposal made it to the floor for debate but quickly became a pro-gun omnibus. Republicans added provisions beefing up stand your ground laws and allowing concealed carry in religious institutions. The Senate hasn’t considered the bill again.
Similar polices have been considered in the Legislature for over a decade but have never reached the finish line.
The legislation is House Bill 328.
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