Here’s something I hope Governor Nixon takes into consideration before he signs SB 656  which  would allow Missourians to carry concealed guns without a permit everywhere open carry is legal:

A federal appeals court decided Thursday that people do not have a constitutional right to carry concealed weapons in public.

Overturning a three-judge panel’s decision, a larger group of judges from the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said California counties may require people who want permits for concealed guns to show a specific reason why they need the weapons.

“The 2nd Amendment does not preserve or protect a right of a member of the general public to carry concealed firearms in public,” the court ruled, 7-4.

There’s lots more that will be said on this topic in potential court cases I am sure, but I, for one, am overjoyed by this reminder of the constitutional limitations of “constitutional carry,” which is what the 2nd Amendment brigade calls the situation that would be created by the provisions of SB 656. Even the gun-loving Supreme Court Justice Scalia, darling of the NRA, was clear in his opinion defining gun ownership as a constitutional right that “regulation of gun ownership was compatible with the Second Amendment.”

SB 656 loosens up lots of other restraints on guns that are just plain scary:

… .The bill will put more guns in more places and at the same time dismantle permit and training requirements for people who want to carry hidden, loaded guns in public. It also includes a so-called “stand your ground” provision — a provision that upends traditional self-defense law and emboldens individuals to settle conflicts by reaching for their firearms, even when they can clearly and safely walk away from any danger.

The appeals court decision underlines the fact that the Governor doesn’t have to expose us to this craziness. He doesn’t have to sanction turning Missouri into an armed war zone unless he really wants to. We’ll see if he gets the message.

More to the point, though, does the Democratic candidate for governor, Chris Koster, get the message? Or will he join the covey of GOP gubernatorial primary candidates for whom guns are an essential campaign tool – along with the promise of unrestricted access which those ads imply?

Numbers tell stories. Based on statistics from 2010, 24/7 Wall St. ranked Missouri eighth for overall gun violence. Missouri had 14 gun injury deaths per each 100,000 people – only 11 states had a higher rate: Louisiana (19.2); Alabama (16.2); Mississippi (16.1); Montana (15.4); Wyoming (15.1); New Mexico (14.9); Nevada (14.5);Arizona (14.6); Arkansas and Oklahoma (14.4); West Virginia (14.1). The story these numbers tell isn’t surprising. Almost all of these states are poor, Southern or Western and deep red or getting redder. Missouri isn’t quite as poor or – maybe – as red as some, but given the inclinations of the Republicans who run our legislature, we’ll soon be charter members of the hard-scrabble, hand-to-mouth, red-state contingent. (You want to see what red-state economic theory does in action, read about the Kansas experiment – which our own GOPers are eager to emulate).

This is true when it comes to rational gun policy as well. Like Missouri, none of the states listed above require permits to purchase handguns or, for that matter, most other types of guns. In Missouri, under the rubric of an almost universally misunderstood 2nd amendment, the good ol’ boys in the state legislature take turns trying to see who can introduce the most extreme laws to deregulate gun ownership. Governor Jay Nixon just vetoed this year’s iteration, Senate Bill 656, which would have “forced Missouri cities to allow teenagers to carry loaded firearms in public, would have allowed school districts to arm teachers, and would have made it impossible for parents to find out if someone is carrying a concealed firearm in their children’s classrooms.”

The bill would also have denied local jurisdictions their current right to forbid open carry which, in the absence of local restrictions, is legal for those who hold a concealed carry permit. Gun religionists claim with – some justification – that a patchwork of local laws can lead to confusion, but more often they just repeat the 2nd amendment mantra and scoff at the fearful reaction that most sane people have when they see guns casually displayed in a commercial setting, often taking major umbrage at what they characterize as “the indoctrinated response in America” to notify the police when folks are scared. I suppose the unindoctrinated response to fear would be to pull out your own gun and start shooting. Somehow, it doesn’t strike me as preferable.

Just for funsies take a look at this trio who were arrested in Cape Girardeau while wandering around a mall sporting holstered handguns. These folks look basically normal if a bit on the hard side and they may be pussycats once one gets to know them, but if I met any of them (including the baby gunsel) in the aisle of a local store with guns on their hips, I’d quickly go the other way and call the police asap. Better safe than sorry. I’ve seen Natural Born Killers – and those folks were downright pretty. There’s something about a carrying a gun in a non-threatening, non-sporting environment that brands the mildest seeming folks as paranoid fools.

You want to get an idea about who belongs to the Missouri gun culture, just note the reaction of some citizens of Lake Ozark when the city recently decided to prohibit open carry in the interest of not scaring away tourists, the main source of local prosperity:

The city should not be treading on the Second Amendment for any reason, said Alderwoman Betsey Browning, who voted against the ordinance. “There are bad people in the world, and by golly if I need a gun I’m going to have a firearm at my side or in my purse,” Browning said. “I’m absolutely against this.”

Audience member Gail Maeder was even more direct.

“Just because somebody felt scared is not a good enough reason to pass an ordinance that violates the Second Amendment,” she said.

Now I would be interested in just how Alderwoman Browning knows that she is surrounded by so  many bad people that she has to go armed, what criteria she employs to recognize them so that she can shoot them, and when or if she ever actually encounters an aggressive bad person, I wonder whether said bad person’s badness will have been enhanced by the ready availability of guns just like that carried by the alderwoman. I seem to read of a constant stream of innocent people who are mistakenly shot when people like Alderwoman Browning get themselves worked up (see, for instance,  here). And guess what else happens in states with lots of guns:

People of all age groups are significantly more likely to die from unintentional firearm injuries when they live in states with more guns, relative to states with fewer guns. On average, states with the highest gun levels had nine times the rate of unintentional firearms deaths compared to states with the lowest gun levels.

Makes you feel real secure knowing that Alderwoman Browning has that gun, doesn’t it?

I ask you, do you want these folks, with their rigid, comic-strip understanding of the 2nd amendment, coupled with their total lack of respect for others, running around playing at being tough guys and gals in public places, not to mention dictating decisions about perfectly legal, 2nd amendment-compatible restrictions of gun ownership? Thanks to Governor Nixon, and barring an override of his veto, we have staved off the flood of gun craziness for one more year – or to put it more accurately, it won’t get any crazier than it is now – but unless something changes in Jefferson City, that may not continue to be the case and Missourians could find themselves regularly taking shelter from myriad shoot-outs of the O.K. Corral variety.

Next to last paragraph restored after being inadvertently omitted.  

In an op-ed in Monday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jamie Merisotis of the Lumina Foundation noted that:

… the demand for skilled workers is growing, and there are thousands of good-paying jobs available right now around the state. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough college-educated residents to fill those positions. And unless the pace of degree attainment picks up significantly, Missouri won’t have enough talent to meet its future workforce needs.

While Mr. Meriotis went on to detail ways to graduate more students form Missouri colleges, the issue of “brain drain” – the retention of those graduates in Missouri – as well as enticing out-of-state college graduates to accept jobs in Missouri are equally important.

General wisdom has it that regions that do best at attracting college graduates are “economically vital as well as physically or culturally appealing.” Economic viability speaks for itself and Missouri obviously has some problems in this area.

Think, however, as well, about the state’s cultural appeal. Social culture and political culture are closely related, so to get a handle on what it is about Missouri that might be off-putting, it could be instructive to review some of the bills that were vetoed by Governor Nixon after this last legislative session, bills, for instance, to ward off non-existent threats from Sharia law, or to forbid any sustainability activities that might mirror the U.N.’s suggested (purely voluntary) Agenda 21 guidelines. An especially illustrative situation is that occasioned by the veto of HB436.

HB436 reflects the belief of some of the not-so-bright lights in the legislature that they can decide to “nullify” all federal gun laws – new federal laws as well as those that have been on the books for years – and prohibit their enforcement by federal officials. Additionally, the bill not only provides sanction for arming teachers, but specifies that they can be fired if they refuse to carry guns. Pure nuttery that contributes to Missouri’s growing reputation as a preserve for rightwing buffoons.

Of course this law violates the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause and was quite correctly vetoed by Governor Nixon. However, it seems likely that the veto will be overturned and Missouri citizens will eventually have to pick up the costs of defending this exercise in idiocy in the courts – where it will almost decidedly be overruled.  

And what is worse, the Governor’s veto may be overturned by virtue of complicit Democrats in the House. Reps. Keith English (D-68), Ben Harris (D-118), and T.J. McKenna (D-114) have all indicated that they’ll vote to override. Even worse yet is that two of these Democrats don’t even necessarily think that HB436 is a good law – they’re just going along to get along. Rep. McKenna noted that:

We love our guns and we love hunting. It’s not worth the fight for me to vote against it, […]  the bill is completely unconstitutional, so the courts are going to have to throw it out.

Rep. Harris was even more explicit about why he plans to vote to override:

“Being a rural-area Democrat, if you don’t vote for any gun bill, it will kill you,” Harris said. “That’s what the Republicans want you to do is vote against it, because if you vote against it, they’ll send one mailer every week just blasting you about guns, and you’ll lose” re-election.”

Rep. Ed. Schieffer (D-011), who claims to be still undecided, has much the same message – which is that lots of Missourians won’t tolerate common sense in their lawmakers:

“I personally believe that any higher court will probably rule this particular gun law unconstitutional – on that, I probably agree that the governor’s right,” Schieffer said. “But I may end up still voting for the gun bill, because I don’t want to be on record for not supporting guns.”

Rep. Keith English alone seems to be willing to overlook the legal problems with the poorly conceived bill,  instead evidently subscribing to the prevailing GOP belief that the mere mention of the 2nd amendment, however inappropriate, banishes the rest of the constitution:

“I represent Democrats, of course, but I’m also a gun supporter,” English says. “This is a huge Second Amendment supporting state. I’m here to speak for those people.”

So there you have it. This is the type of crazy political culture that Missouri has to offer its young college graduates or high achieving graduates from other states who may be considering a job offer in Missouri. If you were a bright young thing and the world were your oyster, would you be willing to locate in a state that has become a laughing stock, where government is obviously tanking, and a sizable majority of its citizens don’t care so long as their lawmakers talk that good ol’ 2nd amendment talk?  

Within the past couple of days police managed to thwart a planned mass shooting at the University of Central Florida. It would have been a massacre had things broken just a little differently.

Yesterday saw the Campus of Indiana University Purdue’s Indianapolis Campus locked down for several hours after sightings of a gunman on campus were reported. Turned out to be a false alarm, but it’s a sign of the times that police can’t afford anything other than an all out push to forestall a possible tragedy.

You want to know how frequent this type of event is, just search “university” and “gunman” on Google. Varying the second search term gets even more hits. Count the number of times you find the perpetrators armed with semi-automatic, high-capacity guns. Weapons of choice for campus attacks seem to be assault weapons equipped with the capacity to shoot many rounds. So much fun, evidently, to shoot fish in a barrel while equipped with military-style weapons. (And no – I don’t want anyone to be shot in the cross-fire from gun-carrying students and faculty wildly responding to a mass-shooter.)

Then recollect that the Supreme Court ruling, District of Columbia v Heller, that affirmed the right of individuals to own guns, also affirmed the legitimacy of reasonable restrictions.

Recently, Harry Reid dropped Senator Diane Feinstein’s proposed ban on military assault-type weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines from gun-violence legislation currently making its way through congress. Fun fact: these are among the characteristics described by the NRA’s propaganda blitz on behalf of the gun industry as “cosmetic.”

One more piece of grist for the mill:

The NRA donated $841,337 to Republicans and $115,150 to Democrats in the 2012 election cycle.

Is the picture clear enough for you yet?

* Slightly corrected: Original fifth paragraph merged with third.