A bill, introduced yesterday:

SECOND REGULAR SESSION

HOUSE BILL NO. 1903

97TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

INTRODUCED BY REPRESENTATIVE NEWMAN.

5337L.01I  D. ADAM CRUMBLISS, Chief Clerk

AN ACT

To repeal section 571.070, RSMo, and to enact in lieu thereof two new sections relating to firearms, with a penalty provision.

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

           Section A. Section 571.070, RSMo, is repealed and two new sections enacted in lieu thereof, to be known as sections 571.070 and 571.071, to read as follows:

           571.070. 1. A person commits the crime of unlawful purchase, ownership, possession, or control of a firearm if such person knowingly purchases or owns a firearm or has any firearm in his or her possession or under his or her control and:

           (1) Such person has been convicted of a felony under the laws of this state, or of a crime under the laws of any state or of the United States which, if committed within this state, would be a felony; or

           (2) Such person is a fugitive from justice, is habitually in an intoxicated or drugged condition, or is currently adjudged mentally incompetent; or

           (3) Such person has, on or after August 28, 2014, been committed for a mental disorder to any hospital, or mental institution, unless such person can demonstrate that he or she is no longer prohibited from possessing a firearm under the provisions of section 571.071 or 571.092; or

           (4) Such person has, on or after August 28, 2014, been found not guilty by reason of insanity of a crime of violence, including any juvenile who has not been adjudicated delinquent by reason of insanity of a crime of violence; or

           (5) Such person has, on or after August 28, 2014, been found mentally incompetent to stand trial for a crime of violence, including any juvenile who has been found mentally incompetent to be adjudicated for a crime of violence; or

           (6) Such person has been the subject of an order of relinquishment issued by the circuit court under section 571.071, unless such person can demonstrate that he or she is no longer prohibited from purchasing, owning, possessing, or controlling a firearm under the provisions of section 571.071 or 571.092.

           2. As used in this section “crime of violence” means any crime which involves the threat or use of physical force.

           [2.] 3. Unlawful possession of a firearm is a class C felony.

           [3.] 4. The provisions of subdivision (1) of subsection 1 of this section shall not apply to the possession of an antique firearm.

          5. On or after August 28, 2014, any judge who:

           (1) Orders a person committed for a mental disorder;

           (2) Finds a person not guilty by reason of insanity for a crime of violence or finds a juvenile not delinquent by reason of insanity for a crime of violence; or

           (3) Finds a person mentally incompetent to stand trial for a crime of violence or finds a juvenile mentally incompetent to be adjudicated for a crime of violence;

Shall notify the appropriate law enforcement agency of the order or finding, order that law enforcement agency to investigate the person who is the subject of that order to determine if such person’s firearms should be relinquished, and order that law enforcement agency to enter that person’s name into the Missouri Uniform Law Enforcement System (MULES) as a person who is prohibited from purchasing, owning, possessing, or controlling a firearm.

           571.071. 1. Any person who on or after August 28, 2014, is prohibited from purchasing, owning, possessing, or controlling a firearm under subsection 1 of section 571.070 shall be investigated by the appropriate law enforcement agency to determine if such person’s firearms should be relinquished. If such agency determines that firearms should be relinquished, the law enforcement agency shall refer the matter to the attorney general’s office. The attorney general may, upon review of the matter, request an order from a circuit court prohibiting the purchase, ownership, possession, or control of a firearm and the relinquishment of any firearms.

           2. The attorney general shall have the burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the respondent’s firearms should be relinquished because the respondent is dangerous to self or others. The respondent shall have the right to present evidence and be heard in any such proceedings. In the event the court makes such a finding, the court shall issue an order to the respondent to relinquish his or her firearms and such order shall be reported to the Missouri Uniform Law Enforcement System (MULES) for purposes of establishing that such person is a person prohibited from the purchase, ownership, possession or control of firearms.

           3. The court may include in any order that such person shall relinquish to a law enforcement officer any firearms purchased, owned, possessed, or controlled by such person. Alternatively, the court may, in its discretion, allow such person to voluntarily relinquish to a law enforcement officer any firearms purchased, owned, possessed, or controlled by such person. The court may also, in its discretion, direct any law enforcement agency to immediately search for and seize any firearms purchased, owned, possessed, or controlled by such person, upon a showing by the petitioner that such person purchased or has ownership, possession, or control of such firearms.

           4. Any person subject to an order of relinquishment under the provisions of this section may petition the court for an order to return the firearms ordered relinquished under the procedures established under section 571.092.

           5. If the basis for relinquishment is removed by the court, any firearms taken from the person shall be restored in a timely fashion.

           6. Any person aggrieved by a decision of the court under the provisions of this section may appeal such decision to the supreme court of Missouri.

           7. The attorney general shall work with local law enforcement agencies and the department of mental health to develop appropriate internal policies and regulations to ensure that personnel who process such procedures under the provisions of this section are trained on appropriate mental health risk- assessment procedures and also are trained to look for histories of violence.

[[emphasis in original]

That would be reasonable. The NRA won’t allow the republican controlled Missouri General Assembly to even consider it.

Previously:

Trouble in right wingnut paradise? (February 15, 2014)

Previously:

The good news and the bad news for Democrats in Missouri (November 9, 2013)

Representative Stacey Newman (D) in the House Chamber. [file photo]

Representative Stacey Newman (D) succinctly summed up the prospects:

….Remember those old worn-out legislative themes during election years?  They will be slightly altered for 2014.

Guns, Voting Rights and Attacking Women

These are the new and improved GOP legislative priorities for next year. Coincidentally, they have been my main legislative focus – fighting back against these extreme type of bills since I was first elected in 2009.

Even though the 2014 session doesn’t kick off for 2 whole months, I am preparing now for anticipated bills…policies strictly designed to incite Tea Party GOP base voters in an election year.

Pre-filing of 2014 bills does not officially open until December 2nd.  However, action has already begun

1.  “The Worse Gun Bill in the Country”

It’s back, this time courtesy of Sen. Ron Richard (R-Joplin), one of the 2 senators who upheld the governor’s veto on HB436 in September, causing the “most extreme gun bill in the country”, as referred to by national media, to fail.

Sen. Richard announced last week he plans to file an almost identical bill next session, with the very same title, “The Second Amendment Preservation Act”.

Huh??

[….]

2.  Hang On to Your Voting Rights

Paying attention to the voter suppression efforts in GOP states: Ohio, North Carolina and Texas?  Keep your eyes open because voter suppression is coming back to Missouri. Again.

For the ninth straight year, the GOP in Missouri is expected to file Voter ID bills designed to make it tough (even prohibitive) for elderly, the disabled, working poor, students and women to continue to vote.

It is a two part process.  First we must change our MO Constitution by a vote of the people to allow Voter ID and then we must pass a companion bill which would determine how it would work.

The GOP’s plan is to put the Voter ID referendum on the November 2014 ballot in order to affect the 2016 Presidential Election.  You should know the drill by now. If you can’t legitimately win elections in the voting booth, then you try other measures.  Voter ID proposals are strictly partisan with every Democrat in Missouri and other state legislatures consistently voting against them.

[….]

3.  Attacks on Women’s Reproductive Health

Keep your seatbelt fastened.  Unbelievable restrictive bills interfering with medical decisions that belong between a woman, her partner and her physician are popping up in state houses all across the country.  AND they are becoming more and more extreme.

[….]

I’m ready for our own Extreme Anti-Women bill next session, whichever one Speaker Tim Jones decides to push.

[….]

[emphasis in original]

Uh, yep. The agenda of the right wingnut republican majority in the Missouri General Assembly is nothing if not predictable.

Bill prefiling starts in twenty-four days.

We can’t wait. It’s just like the anticipation of opening those holiday gifts – with the only possible payoff being lumps of coal.  

Overlooking the Missouri House chamber.

A petition on CREDO Action has been started by Representative Stacey Newman (D):

Stop Pro-NRA Bills Just to Attack Lawmakers

To: Pro-NRA Legislators in the Missouri State Legislature

Stop outrageous pro-NRA Missouri bills making it a felony to propose gun safety legislation.

Why is this important?

This past week Missouri State Rep. Mike Leara (R-St. Louis) proposed legislation:  “[a]ny member of the general assembly who proposes a piece of legislation that further restricts the right of an individual to bear arms, as set forth under the second amendment of the Constitution of the United States, shall be guilty of a class D felony.”

I am one of those legislators my colleague and the NRA is targetting.  Rep. Lear wants me to go to prison with his bill.

Why?  I filed a common sense bill calling for closing the background checks loophole in Missouri, almost identical the proposal called for by the White House and other lawmakers around the country.

Over 2000 people in the U.S. have been killed by firearms to date since the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting…more than 30 lives are killed daily.  

Rep. Lear’s response?  Criminalize legislators, like myself, for standing up against the NRA in Missouri by proposing common sense supported by the majority of citizens.

So why the political games to make it a felony for Missouri legislators to file gun safety bills?

Rep. Lear stated, “I filed HB 633 as a matter of principle and as a statement in defense of the Second Amendment rights of all Missourians”.  He said, ” I want it to be clear that the Missouri House will stand in defense of the people’s Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”

We need responsible legislators in Missouri who care about saving lives, not ones who grandstand with the media and play political games just to get on comedy shows.    

Get serious or go home.

Previously:

HB 633: we really never do get out of junior high school (February 18, 2013)

But, that’s not all:

HB 162: Tenthers and guns, what could go wrong? (January 15, 2013)

HB 170: so much for “originalism” (January 16, 2013)

HB 276: Shootout at the K-12 corral? (January 27, 2013)

HB 350: “Nobody move suddenly, he’s got a duck and he knows how to use it.” (January 29, 2013)

HB 436: loonier than Wayne LaPierre at a press conference (February 5, 2013)

HB 420: when pie tins are outlawed, only outlaws will have pie tins (February 5, 2013)

Missouri General Assembly: it’s their world, the rest of us only get to live in it (February 18, 2013)

HB 640: the devil is always in the details (February 20, 2013)

HB 640: ballots don’t kill people, people do (February 20, 2013)

There’s a pattern here.

There’s a new progressive blogsite worth checking out. A group of progressive women, including state rep. Stacey Newman, are posting news articles about issues women care about, written from a progressive point of view. The site is Progress Women. With five bloggers, it’s updated at least once a day. Most of the postings are links to articles on national websites, but occasionally one covers local issues and is written by a staff member.

The site is just one of the ways progressive women are stepping up their communications game. Rep. Newman, when she spoke to Missouri Progressive Action Group last week, said that in the past, Democrats in the minority in the House have stood at the mics and made their points, even when they knew they weren’t going to convert any Republicans or win a vote, because the press was there. Dems called it “talking to god.” It was their only means of informing the public of what went on on the House floor. But now, Newman said, pulling her smart phone out of her hip pocket, there’s Twitter and Facebook. Now when a Tea Party representative says something that makes the Dems gawk in disbelief, they can get the word out on their own and in a hurry. And I can tell you that Newman, even when the lege isn’t in session, is all over Facebook and Twitter.  

There’s a new progressive blog in Missouri, ProgressWomen: by women for women. Welcome to blogtopia (y, sctp!). We look forward to following their work as they feed the content beast…

( – promoted by hotflash)

Several candidates were vying for Steve Brown’s seat, but the two with the inside track were Stacey Newman, who fought a hard race against Brown last year, and Gina Mitten, whose husband is a committeeman with 34 percent of the vote in his hand. The committee met in Clayton Thursday evening, listened to the candidates speak for five minutes each, and voted.

Rea Kleeman, who had tossed her hat in the ring–and who with her dedicated activism would have made a good rep, by the way–called to tell me that Newman got the nod. She said Stacey’s speech was impressive because she could describe the many political activities she’s devoted herself to in this last decade. Newman stressed her fight to stop the concealed weapons legislation that Republicans rammed down our throats even though voters had spoken against it, as well as her statewide efforts to organize women politically. She is currently the executive director for Harriett’s List. She could show that she knows how to fundraise, and, in fact, she had even lined up some endorsements in the week or so she had at her disposal.

District 73, Clayton and Richmond Heights, is strong Democratic territory, so it’s a safe bet that Newman will win the special election and easily retain the seat.

HD73 in St. Louis, the seat Margaret Donnelly is relinquishing in her run for Attorney General, went 70/30 for the Democrat in 2006. It’s a foregone conclusion for the Ds this year, so the primary is the real election, with Stacey Newman and Steve Brown facing off. Both are serious candidates, with solid fundraising, though Brown has a distinct edge, since his bank account at the end of the last quarter had twice as much money as Newman’s.

We’ll soon see what the next quarter brings, but in any case, Newman contends that she’s the better fit for the district because of its history of electing progressive women: Donnelly for six years, and Bray before that for ten years. You can see the support from progressive women in Newman’s endorsements, starting with Senators Maida Coleman and Rita Days, Representatives Mott Oxford and Wright Jones, and Coulcilwomen Burkett and Fraser. Not to mention, Governor Bob Holden.

More important than the history of her district, she says, is that the House needs another progressive female. Less than 22 percent of the legislature is women, and some of those are Republican. Of the Democrats, not all are progressive. In fact, progressive women in Missouri’s lege are practically an endangered species.  

Newman is undeniably progressive. She started taking an active interest in politics in 2000. After Columbine and other school shootings, she wanted to do everything possible to see that her six-year-old daughter, Sophie, and all children would be safe when they went to school. So she and Sophie took part in the Million Mom March (where she met and became friends with Jill Schupp and Jeanne Kirkton, both now also running for state rep). After that march, Stacey and Jeanne began lobbying as private citizens against the legislature’s plans to overturn the ban citizens had voted for on concealed weapons.

She and Jeanne, as citizen lobbyists, showed up in Jeff City almost weekly for three years. They earned enemies. The word she uses is “stalked” to describe the harassment in the halls and the angry letters she got from NRA proponents.

She recalls with disgust that after Gov. Holden vetoed the legislation allowing conceal/carry, Senator Gibbons, whose Kirkwood district had voted 80 percent against allowing it, changed his vote in favor of it just before the veto override session in September. That vote was enough to override the veto. He risked the displeasure of his constituents, she says, because the NRA, which is the lobbying arm for gun manufacturers, contributes the big bucks to Republicans.

From her work on the gun issue, Stacey broadened her activism to a variety of women’s issues, like domestic violence. Then in 2003, she worked with State Party Chair May Scheve, under the DNC, to get out the women’s vote. After January 2005, she continued traveling around the state organizing women’s groups, but not under the auspices of the Missouri Democratic Party anymore. The Women’s Coalition became a privately organized PAC, with her as the executive director.

Her antennae immediately began vibrating when Governor Blunt commented in 2005 at the Missouri Baptist Convention that Plan B is an “abortion pill”. She formed a coalition of 18 groups to fight what they called “Blunt’s War on Women”. There’s no permanent victory in that war as long as Republicans control the governor’s mansion and the legislature, but the coalition did stop the Pharmacy Denial Bill in 2006, a bill which would have allowed pharmacists to decide whether or not to fill a prescription for Plan B or for birth control pills, for that matter.

Newman feels that women need more advocates in Jeff City, partly because so many issues, even beyond abortion, birth control and pay equity, are women’s issues. For example, the Medicaid cuts the Republicans enacted affected women disproportionately. Seventy percent of the people cut from the rolls were females.

It’s not that Democratic male reps won’t vote for legislation to protect the victims of domestic violence. And, sure, most Democratic men in the House will vote against Republican nuttiness if it claims that Plan B is an abortifacient (when the FDA has ruled that it is not, that it’s just a contraceptive). Most of the Democratic men will also vote against letting pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions for religious reasons.

But those male legislators don’t make such issues their priority. Women do that, Stacey says. She will do that. She’s persistent, unafraid to stand up for her ideas–a fighter, in short. And yet she looks for cooperation more than confrontation. She met with Sarah Steelman and her staff, for example, in late 2005, thinking that some of these women’s issues need not be partisan. Stacey tried to convince Steelman to lend her support to Bray’s bill allowing police to confiscate a gun if they’ve been called to a domestic violence dispute and believe that the gun in the household presents an imminent danger to a spouse.

Steelman’s staff, all women, seemed interested, but a large picture of Phyllis Schlafly looked down on the meeting and Steelman’s icon must have given Newman’s ideas a thumbs down. Sarah never returned Stacey’s phone calls. Stacey says she wouldn’t try to enlist Steelman’s cooperation in future, but that doesn’t mean she won’t work to persuade other Republicans that women have some issues in common.

Look, for Stacey Newman, running for office isn’t about adding a notch on her resume. Her husband will be retiring soon, and her youngest child is in high school. If she wanted to, she could focus on cooking great meals and shopping at the Galleria. But she’s passionate about issues and she’s met women who are being hurt by Missouri’s anti-woman government. That’s why she’s running.