Missouri lawmakers loosen gun laws, back voter photo ID

The bill also will allow Missourians to carry concealed weapons without a permit, eliminating training requirements for concealed carry that are now mandatory in the state. And if the state budget doesn’t include money for such costs, then the ID requirement would not take effect.

The legislation also would create a “stand-your-ground” right, meaning people don’t have duty to retreat from danger any place they are legally entitled to be present. They will allow gun owners to carry their concealed weapon without training or a permit anywhere Missourians can pack heat openly now, which is everywhere but courthouses, jails, polling places and some businesses, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, who represents Ferguson, where sometimes violent protests broke out after the fatal police shooting of black 18-year-old Michael Brown in 2014. Republican legislators responded by quashing a Democratic filibuster and forcing a vote on the bill; it passed handily in the state House and Senate pretty much along party lines.

“What I don’t want to get to is the point where there is a trigger-happy police officer or bad Samaritan like Zimmerman who says, ‘Black boy in the hood”. It also makes a change to the so-called castle doctrine to allow visitors to a home the same ability to use deadly force on intruders.

SB 656 was sponsored by state Senator Brian Munzlinger (R-18) and state Representative Eric Burlison, (R-133), and was supported by The National Rifle Association.

Nixon said the recognition was a “great honor”, expressing thanks to Marble, the Board of Governors and “the entire Missouri Southern State family” in a statement emailed by his office. “The legislature stood strong for the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens by overriding Gov. Nixon’s misguided veto”. A 2014 study found that since those laws were repealed, the state’s homicide rate has increased by more than 15 percent, as the national rate has dropped 11 percent.

Supporters of the change say that it will make it easier to carry weapons for the goal of self defense and say that people with a record of certain criminal offences and mental conditions will not be able to legally carry weapons.

The Missouri chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, part of Everytown for Gun Safety, issued a statement condemning the Republican state legislature for “caving” to pressure from the “gun lobby”.

“I’m exhausted of the fact that we have disproportionate numbers of African-Americans who are dying”, he added.

The requirements wouldn’t take effect unless voters in November strike down a 2006 Missouri Supreme Court ruling that made is unconstitutional to require a photo I.D.to vote.

“(T) here is no conceivable reason why Missouri doesn’t have voter ID other than political posturing”, he wrote.