A bill, pre-filed today, by Representative Mike Colona (D):

FIRST REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE BILL NO. 89

97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVE COLONA.

0666L.02I     D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk

AN ACT

To amend chapter 571, RSMo, by adding thereto one new section relating to the crime of failure to secure a firearm, with a penalty provision.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the state of Missouri, as follows:

           Section A. Chapter 571, RSMo, is amended by adding thereto one new section, to be known as section 571.065, to read as follows:

           571.065. 1. This section shall be known and may be cited as the “Firearm Responsibility Act”.

           2. A person commits the crime of failure to secure a firearm if such person fails to secure a firearm at all times such firearm is not in active use by:

           (1) Engagement of a gun locking device; or

           (2) Storage in a locked safe, gun box, or other similar container appropriate for the secure storage of a firearm.

           3. Any person who violates the provisions of this section is guilty of a class A misdemeanor.

           4. The provisions of this section shall not apply to any licensed law enforcement officer, licensed peace officer, or active member of the United States Armed Forces.

           5. For purposes of this section, “gun locking device” means an integrated design feature or an attachable accessory that is resistant to tampering and is effective in preventing the discharge of a firearm by a person who does not have access to the key, combination, or other mechanism used to disengage the device.

It’s not gonna happen. Not because it shouldn’t, but because the republican majority in the General Assembly would need permission from their NRA masters.

This is why, from Mark Ames:

….Because it’s now so deeply ingrained that owning guns is a form of radical subversive politics, the people who still engage in real politics have the pick of the litter. That first became really clear in the depths of the 2008-9 collapse, when a lot of people who thought of themselves as radicals and anarchists made a lot of feckless noise about how they were arming and preparing for the collapse and revolution. They could’ve gone out and organized something and maybe built a politics of people power or even a politics of what they call revolution, a politics that actually changed things. But instead, they locked themselves in their homes and apartments with their guns and fancied themselves political revolutionaries just waiting to be swept up. But no one came. No one bothered or cared. And really, why would any plutocrat or evil government agency bother with the suckers, all harmlessly atomized and isolated and thoroughly neutralized by the false sense of political empowerment that their guns gave them, while you do the real work of plundering budgets, bribing politicians and writing laws even more in your favor?

So while everyone was hiding out in their homes armed and ready for Hollywood finales that never came, in the real world political power was concentrating at warp-speed with zero resistance.

From the oligarchy’s perspective, the people were thoroughly neutralized by the false sense of political empowerment that guns gave them. Guns don’t work in this country – they didn’t work for the Black Panthers or the Whiskey Rebellion, and they won’t work for you or me either.

It takes years to cultivate a political mindset that voluntarily neutralizes itself by convincing itself that its contribution to world revolution comes down to purchasing a few guns at K-Mart, then blogging about it. That’s what reactionary plutocrats like the Koch brothers understood about the deeper politics of gun fanaticism, and why their outfits like the Cato Institute have been at the forefront of overturning gun regulations and promoting “Stand Your Ground” vigilantism as a substitute for political engagement: That by poisoning the political climate, it poisons the minds, which circulates back to the external environment, and back into the minds, until you lock the culture into a pattern in which you always get more and they always get fleeced, which makes them more fanatical and you more powerful…

This is what I missed or ignored about gun control: The longterm view that the Koch brothers and the Scaifes and everyone backing gun-nuttery understood about how gun laws or the absence of those laws can completely transform the surrounding political climate.

(via “The NRA As Paranoia Vector & Neofeudalist Tool” at Balloon Juice)