Gun lovers in Missouri are sad face emoji today as conservative state lawmakers have decided to scrap two new gun laws they were planning on moving through the legislature. Unfortunately for Second Amendment fetishists, plans for moving to debate the bills have faltered after Wednesday’s mass shooting at a Super Bowl victory parade in Kansas City, which left one woman dead and at least 22 others injured.
Republican Majority Leader Jonathan Patterson told the Kansas City Star that House Republicans would not be pursuing the two pieces of legislation this session. And while Patterson thought the bills were “worthy of debate,” the shooting really put a damper on their chances of passing and therefore, “[n]ow is not the appropriate time” to talk about loosening gun laws.
The two bills that got scuttled, HB 2291 and HB 1708, were real doozies. The first would have exempted sales tax on ammunition and gun purchases, making Missouri the first state in the union to tax food but not guns. A real highwater mark of conservative public health policy. The second law would have allowed firearms to be carried inside places of worship and on public transit.
As for Patterson’s “now’s not the appropriate time,” remark, it is hard to imagine what Patterson considers an “appropriate time” to discuss guns and gun violence. In April of 2023, when 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot in the head at point-blank range by an 84-year-old white man for mistakenly ringing the wrong doorbell while looking to pick up his siblings from a playdate, Patterson had no bills to debate and still didn’t want to discuss gun violence.
Missouri House Majority Leader Jonathan Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican, said the shooting of Yarl “is a tragedy.” “I think we need to get all of the facts and let the justice system do its work,” Patterson said in a statement.
Since 2002, when the Republican Party took full control of Missouri’s legislature, they have systematically repealed gun restrictions and other gun safety laws that were previously in place. Everytown for Gun Safety, the largest gun violence prevention organization in the United States, ranks Missouri’s “gun law strength” at 38.
Missouri experiences one of the highest rates of gun deaths, gun homicide rates, and household firearm ownership. Missouri not only has none of the foundational gun violence prevention laws, but in 2007 the state repealed an 80-year-old permit-to-purchase law—leading to an increase in the state’s gun homicide rate of up to 27%
Meanwhile in Arizona, state Republicans seem to be moving full steam ahead on a bill that would allow 21 year olds with a concealed carry permit to walk around college campuses.
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Ohhhhh yeah! Democrats kicked ass and then some in Tuesday's special election in New York, so of course we're talking all about it on this week's episode of "The Downballot." Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard explain how Tom Suozzi's win affects the math for Democrats' plan to take back the House, then dive into the seemingly bottomless list of excuses Republicans have been making to handwave their defeat away. The bottom line: Suozzi effectively neutralized attacks on immigration—and abortion is still a huge loser for the GOP.
