jay_nixon

In a session that saw the Missouri legislature override dozens of Governor Jay Nixon’s vetoes last night, the senate and house both mustered the votes needed to override Nixon’s nixing of SB656 which included three key pro-gun provisions. The new law will allow specially trained and designated employees to carry firearms in schools. It lowers the age for obtaining a concealed carry license to 19 from 21 and allows anyone with a CCW permit to openly carry a firearm. As washingtonpost.com reports, Missouri schools had the option to allow carry on their campsites before, but the new law “requires the state Department of Public Safety to establish training guidelines for schools wanting to designate a teacher or administrator as a ‘school protection officer’ authorized to carry a concealed gun or self-defense spray.”

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61 COMMENTS

  2. Nothing like starting the day with some good news!

    “allows anyone with a CCW permit to openly carry a gun.”
    Since Missouri honors Illinois concealed carry licenses, I hope this means Illinois licensees can open carry too.

      • Technically open carry was legal. However, before now, there was not a preemption law. Each locality / municipality could ban it (Kansas City did about a month ago).

  3. “… Missouri schools had the option to allow carry on their campsites before …”

    Actually quite appropriate since many of us refer to public schools as indoctrination camps anyway.

    • I just figured they were going on a lot of overnight field trips.
      My fifth grade class did a camping trip in the ’80s.

  4. The “Show Me” state setting an example for the rest of the nation, a nice counterpoint the foolishness currently underway in the slave states….

  8. look’s like Obama’s hand puppet has the peoples hand up his back side controlling him for once….good way to start the day

    • Nicely put.

      These guys need to remember, be reminded occasionally, that they work for us, not their party or others in their party or they buddies if party is not “in play.”

    • I believe Missouri’s new law will take effect 30 days after the veto-override vote.

      Nixon also lost to a veto-override on legislation requiring women to wait 72 hours after consulting with a doctor before ending a pregnancy.

      I wonder what Watts’ and Bloomberg’s stance on abortion is; don’t believe I’ll have to think too hard on that one because it goes hand in hand with the anti-gun types’ cultural philosophy.

      Not to overly muddy the waters, but I do believe that fighting un-necessary “purely optional” abortion procedures should go hand in hand with fighting the anti-gun efforts of progressive liberal Democrats. Gun rights are an enumerated constitutionally protected provision; abortion “rights” are a judicially created right magically conceived through extension of 14th Amendment due process and “privacy” protections. Liberal progressives don’t want to hear that, but that point should be hammered home at every opportunity.

      The anti’s want to infringe on our enumerated Constitutional Second Amendment protections, then they thould expect in return to be hit hard on abortion “rights” JUDICIALLY created in 1973 with ROE v. WADE and DOE v. BOLTON.

      • I guess I don’t understand. You don’t want people to tell you what to do with guns, but you want to tell women what to do with their bodies. Seems like you would want fewer restrictions, not more.

        • The right to keep and bear arms is a right-murdering your unborn baby not so much. Deal with it.

        • Always the inflammatory rhetoric: “murdering”, “unborn baby” and all similar knee-jerk reactions to a perdicament that is solely and completely the Woman’s business—not some hairy male bible-thumping reactionary.

          (1) at conception, when a woman’s unfertilized egg is fertilized by a male’s sperm, producing a zygote,

          (2) when the following criteria, developed by the Harvard Medical School, are met: (a) response to external stimuli, (b) presence of deep reflex action, (c) presence of spontaneous movement and respiratory effort, and (d) presence of brain activity as ascertained by the electroencephalogram. These criteria would be met by the end of the third month in almost all cases.

          (3) at “quickening,” when movements can be subjectively perceived by the woman, usually around four to five months.

          (4) at “viability,” when the unborn child is potentially capable of living outside the woman’s womb with artificial help (life support system). Today, our medical technology makes this possible at around 20 weeks.

          (5) at birth, when the baby is physically separated from the woman and begins to breathe on its own.

          Seems to me the individual should have the CHOICE. Just as a person might CHOOSE to carry a weapon….

    • Good luck with that. The perfect holster for concealed carry doesn’t exist anymore than the perfect caliber or firearm does. What is useful on a particular occasion may not be suitable for others. Carrying your glock on your hip with your shirttail out won’t be appropriate at more formal occations. This debate rages on and on. It really comes down to preference, comfort, and above all else, practicing with your selected methods of carry so that abilities are not compromised at a critical time. There are tons of opinions and as we all know, opinions are like —holes, everyones got one. Some opinions, even from established professionals, are still nothing more than a personal preference.

      • It’s a little easier if you can restrict yourself to a very few carry guns. You’ll need several holster/gun combos for weather and dress code variations.

        Congrats MO! Good news. I wish FL were and OC state. OWB carry is so much more comfortable.

  15. An important component of the legislation is that it conceptually treats ammunition and accessories like/as part of the weapon.

  16. After last years one vote loss this is extremely gratifying. Doesn’t change anything I do unless I’m in KC or STL but, it’s still great. Next stop…….Constitutional Carry.

    • Rodney Boyd had a great interview with one of the authors of this bill awhile back (before the veto) and the congressman said the whole point of this piece of legislation was to set the groundwork for a constitutional carry amendment.

  18. Ahhh, another defeat of one more chain of slavery. Ultimately, Constitutional Carry with no need to beg the master for permission to practice a G-d given right by requiring a permit or license.

  19. Before the Antis (yes, you Shannon) start to whine, let’s discuss facts:

    1) Lowers concealed carry age from 21 to 19 – FACT: those under 21 could already get a CCW permit from out of state (say Maine) and Missouri would honor it. This was the common practice. So all this does is now allow the State to keep revenues in Missouri vs sending the $$ out of state

    2) Allows teachers to carry guns – FACT: Teachers with a CCW permit could already carry guns if the local school board permitted it. Now the school board has to specifically allow a teacher to carry after a public hearing to allow the local affected parents to raise/address concerns. More importantly, this statute now requires teachers to get specific police officer training (if I recall, 120 hours worth) – far in excess of what is required under the CCW regulating statute.

    3) Open Carry – This allows people to open carry in Missouri. FACT – open carry was already permitted under Article 1, Section 23 of Missouri Consitution but local jurisdictions could restrict it. This strengthens the state pre-emption law. I am sure big city mayors will cry about this change, but like Ezell v Chicago, having local “control” on an issue when there is a state pre-emption question was sure to bring a federal challenge. Cities cannot argue that people can exercise their free speech rights elsewhere and argue there is no constitutional violation. Similarly, citiei cannot restrict 2nd amendment rights when there is a state pre-emption statute. Morevoer, since Amendment 5 passed in Missouri on August 4th (took effect Sept. 4), technically, there are some questions about Article 1, Section 23 of the Missouri Consitution anyway, namely, the entire CCW restriction law.

    a victory indeed!

    • Oh yeah…..I forgot about the CCW issue. Hopefully some lawyer types are looking into this. I’d love to see Missouri at the leading edge of gun rights along with Arizona.

      • Missouri may be ahead right now – when our governor vetoed a few gun bills this summer, there was no hope of an override.

        One can open-carry at 18 in AZ, but conceal carry only at 21. Under the law the governor did sign those serving in the armed forces can get a concealed carry permit at 19, but that only covers this specific group.

    • I just love that Mayor Sly James is hacked off at this. Like someone stated above, when will the preemption take effect? Immediately? I’m still going to CCW, but it’s nice to not have to worry if my heater is exposed for a brief moment.

      • The statutes were revised last year to allow a brief open carry/flashing. This is full bore. and I am glad that Mayor Sly James (Kansas City). Both he and Mayor Slay (St Louis) tried getting Amendment 5 tossed and arguing how big cities need different rules, that is unless they want to be treated the same in circumstances that favor them. James even stated publicly that he was putting all of his effort into defeating this veto override attempt (the outgoing Senate Minority Leader, Jolie Justus (term limited -amen)), is an attorney in Kansas City. She had a weak filibuster attempt, but it actually helped as they went line by line in the bill as it showed how much of what was proposed already existed in different areas of the law – this just aligned things.

        #winning

  24. If the next Adam Lanza wannabe tries something in a MO school, I hope he goes down in a hail of lead from an armed good guy without a single student or teacher being killed.

  25. The people reps in Missouri have spoken LOUD and CLEAR. God bless citizen’s representatives! What a great day!

  27. Dare I?

    What about “OCTC hurts us all, even in other states” claims?

    Yep. Can’t resist. Either they are ruining everyone’s rights, as often asserted, or they aren’t. Here’s some of that pesky evidence that they aren’t.

    Sorry the evidence doesn’t fit the dogma. Evidence is kind of rude that way sometimes. 😉

  28. Que the “blood will run in the streets” comments. I guess like conspiracy theorists they figure sooner or later they will be right, but here how many years after concealed carry first was legalized are they still wrong?

  29. …the new law “requires the state Department of Public Safety to establish training guidelines for schools wanting to designate a teacher or administrator as a ‘school protection officer’ authorized to carry a concealed gun or self-defense spray.”

    Does the Department of Public Safety operate like the City Council of Washington DC or Chicago, IL?

    Seems to be a step backwards, from approval by the local school districts to requiring a laundry list of qualifications before a ‘school protection officer’ is allowed to carry.

    And the open carry provisions. What was gained besides forcing anti-gun mayors, etc. to allow OC in “their” kingoms? Has Missouri ever had unlicensed open carry?

    I ask this last because Tennessee is in pretty much the same boat; can’t OC at all unless we jump through the same hoops as CC. (One license, OC or CC as desired.) I look for this to be the next issue addressed in Tennessee, as we can’t allow places like Mississippi or Alabama or Kentucky to out-do us.

    • “And the open carry provisions. What was gained besides forcing anti-gun mayors, etc. to allow OC in “their” kingoms? Has Missouri ever had unlicensed open carry?”

      Yes, most of Missouri has legal open carry without license.
      The issue here is that municipalities(either the city or county) were allowed to restrict open carry in their area. It wasn’t just Kansas City and St. Louis. Lots of counties/towns still had laws on the books(some of them very old) talking about this issue, and as such, it would make it confusing. To legally open carry in some places required a call to the local sheriff and local police just to make sure you weren’t going to be charged and keeping an attorney on retainer. While this is the worst case scenario(and to be frank, I’m not sure it ever became an issue), the laws were still on the books and people could be prosecuted for them.

      For example, in April I had a group shoot in Houston MO. We wanted to open carry in Houston, but Houston had a law against the open display of weapons dating back to the 1950s. It was only after contacting the local police, district attorney, sheriff and mayor’s office that I finally got a serious clear answer that the law was not enforced and open carry in Houston was not an issue and if it became an issue for our group(providing no one was brandishing or otherwise breaking the law) that I could talk to the same people again and get the issue either dropped or re-evaluted. Luckily, it never came to that and in truth, no one in Houston seemed to care the week we were in town.

      This aspect of the notion of open carry for all ccw holders removes the stipulations not only for metro areas in Missouri, but also allows essentially a ‘trump card’ to these old laws with spotty enforcement.

      I think it’s time to shoot off a thank you email to my state reps.

      All of this said, I’m glad to be a native Missourian and to have my gun rights protected and clarified. I am allowed to defend my life no matter if I’m in my home, my vehicle, visiting relatives, camping or in public. The way it should be and that is a good feeling. Now if we could just get rid of that pesky Hughes Amendment.

  32. Aww that’s a shame. Up until this, Gov. Nixon was having such a successful summer. His path to the White House grew more gleaming day by day. Or not.

    What do you expect from a guy who’s never held a real job? Never lived among the people? Never lacked privilege? (And, no, five years, back three+ decades ago, in private practice, spent preparing for and running for a state Senate seat doesn’t count for much.)

    Missouri should dump this wrongheaded hack post haste. What an embarrassment and poor excuse for leadership.

  33. I’m confused. Does this mean a teacher carrying “self-defense spray” requires the same bureaucratic nonsense as a handgun in Missouri schools?

    Interesting. My sister and several of her friends carried pepper spray on their key-chains as students in high school and do in college now. I told the girls any school officials who gave them trouble would back down when we accused them of enabling rape.

  37. Well if you were to say at least one good thing came out of the Ferguson goat-rope, this would be my pick.
    Another progtard Dem Governor bites the dust.

  38. so if im a resident of the state of M.O. I am 19 and have a clear record as of the end of this month I will be allowed to walk into a shop and buy a hand gun legally and the ammo / will this effect the cost of guns in M.O. due to the new open market?

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