Last week’s Public Safety Committee meeting sparked a citywide conversation on gun violence and what can be done, in consideration of the onerous state laws that stand in the way of most reasonable reform.
During Thursday’s committee meeting, Alderwoman Cara Spencer (Ward 8) brought up Board Bill 29 for questions from her colleagues. This bill would require any person who is open-carrying in St. Louis City to also hold a concealed carry permit. In Spencer’s own words, “openly carrying a firearm without a permit is an unlawful activity.”
Except, that position directly contradicts our state laws and would invite an immediate lawsuit from the state and/or private organizations. Spencer nevertheless doubled down on her position that her proposed legislation may run afoul of state law, but the situation calls for a (losing) legal fight — a pollyannaish approach to a very serious problem.
The reality that continues to evade Spencer is that our state has arguably the most lax gun laws in the country. Since 2006, our state has been a “castle doctrine” state. A 2007 law repealed a requirement that a person purchasing a handgun obtain a permit to own that firearm, creating an instant spike in gun-related deaths. In 2015, in the first legislative session following the start of the Ferguson Uprising, Missouri became a “stand your ground state.” And finally, in 2017, Missouri adopted “constitutional carry,” removing a permit requirement for both open-carrying and conceal-carrying a firearm. All of this amounts to very little space to legislate an exceptionally tremendous problem.
Concerns about the constitutionality of Spencer’s bill, along with its racial impacts and lack of activist support, were raised by freshmen Alderpersons Daniela Veláquez (Ward 6), Alisha Sonnier (Ward 7), and Rasheen Aldridge (Ward 14) during the public safety meeting. Spencer bizarrely suggested that people don’t openly carry firearms on Kansas City streets and stated that while she had the support of the St. Louis Police Officers Association, she had minimal discussion with Police Chief Robert Tracy only the day before. When asked directly if she had spoken with Chief Tracy about how SLMPD would implement her bill, Spencer dodged answering the question and instead provided a vague response that the Chief is “in favor of changing the gun laws.” Nothing specific and nothing committal. Spencer, it seems, may not have bothered to speak to the police at all before she filed her bill.
“I want us to do something…but we can’t be so emotional that we don’t think through how this would play out. What are the real consequences?” Sonnier asked, pointing to the controlling state gun laws. “If we can’t confiscate the gun, but we’re going to send officers into a situation where they have to approach someone who is already open-carrying…in a ‘constitutional carry’ state…and we’re going to send our officers into this situation for a fee?…”
Sonnier also corrected some of Spencer’s misstatements about the City Counselor’s Office, including the suggestion that a $500 fine is permissible under state law (it’s not) and that police can stop individuals openly carrying firearms for that very act (they can’t). When Sonnier confronted Spencer about the issue of a state law capping gun-related fines at $35, Spencer instantly backed down and said she would be willing to remove the city’s ability to fine a person, effectively leaving a “gun control” bill that has no punitive measures and that police couldn’t actually enforce.
Board Bill 29 gives “stop and frisk vibes,” said Alderman Aldridge. “If [an officer] can’t even take [a gun,] and you’ve just given somebody a fine,” what problem does the legislation solve that existing law doesn’t already address, he asked.
Alderwoman Shameem Clark-Hubbard (Ward 10) locked into uncertain terms used by Spencer and within the bill, pointing to a lack of clarity in how certain words are defined. “We have ‘confiscated’ and we have ‘safe harbor,’” she said. “But as a mother of a child that attends Central Visual Performing Arts, where was the safe harbor with that situation?”
Following last week’s public safety committee meeting, however, Spencer began her rounds with the press in an effort to spin the narrative away from her proposed legislation’s glaring issues. That evening on KMOV, Spencer’s misinformation spree continued, where her questionable statements about the City Counselor’s support and meritless references to “safe harboring” a firearm – a policy that does not exist under current state gun laws – were repeated.
In a joint press conference on Friday with Board President Megan Green, Spencer repeated her factually-devoid suggestions that Kansas City doesn’t have a gun violence problem and that “members of SLMPD” are overwhelmingly supportive – all seemingly in the quest for sound bites. “We have a shared agreement that we must address gun violence and do everything we can that’s within our authority to get guns off the street,” Green said. “But we have to do it in a way that’s smart, and in a way that’s legal and in a way that will be upheld in court because we will be sued over it.”
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Finally, in closing this week, we want to acknowledge the state-sponsored execution of Michael Tisius, a mid-Missouri man who was sentenced to death after his conviction for murdering two Randolph County jailers during a botched escape attempt. After his 2010 sentencing, a juror was discovered to be illiterate and court staff had completed the written paperwork for that juror. Jurors are required under Missouri law to be able to read in order to serve, and this requirement was explicitly ignored by prosecutors and judges – until a federal judge issued a stay of execution on May 31.
Last Friday, an Eighth Circuit judge reinstated the death sentence. Late Tuesday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Tisius’ case.
Once again, the State of Missouri has executed a person with a glaring, constitutional injustice connected to their death sentence. Raheem Taylor was executed earlier this year, maintaining his innocence and his strong alibi until his death. Readers will remember our column from December, when we discussed Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson’s rare post-conviction dissent, rebuking the actions of a St. Louis County judge who refused to grant a mandatory hearing to Kevin Johnson prior to his November execution.
Calling the Missouri Supreme Court’s judgment “fundamentally flawed” and “so at odds with basic due process principles,” Justice Jackson pulled no punches: “a State cannot provide a process for post-conviction review and then arbitrarily refuse to follow the prescribed procedures. But that appears to be what happened in this case.”
History, it seems, continues to repeat itself. Especially when it comes to the death penalty.