This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Dec. 19, 2012 - When Rep. Mike Kelley received a phone call from a reporter earlier this week, he knew it wasn’t about his bill designating November Pancreatic Cancer Month.
Kelley knew immediately the call was about his legislation to allow teachers or administrators to carry concealed firearms on school premises if they possess a valid permit. The Lamar Republican filed the bill just a few days after a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school, an event that's spurred national and state legislators across the country to reexamine a host of policies.
Kelley is not the first person to broach the idea of allowing school personnel to bring concealed weapons to school. St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch made such a suggestion on Monday, while state Rep. Stanley Cox, R-Sedalia, told the Associated Press that state lawmakers should consider such a move.
Kelley said the idea was actually brought to him last year by some of his constituents, but he added, “This thought has been racing through people’s heads since” the Columbine High School shootings in 1999.
And he added the “situation in Connecticut definitely brought it back to the limelight.”
“We have to think to ourselves ‘how many of those 26 people would still be alive today if there had been somebody in that school who could have stopped the gunman?’” Kelley said. “Missourians have a flawless record" with conceal and carry regulations, he said, adding that there have been no problems or incidents with permit holders.
"We trust our children to these teachers," said Kelley, "but we don’t give them the tools to protect our children if there ever becomes a situation where we need to.”
He stressed that the bill would not mandate a teacher or administrator to carry a firearm, adding that he doesn’t want “anybody carrying a gun into a situation where they don’t feel comfortable doing it.”
“But I will tell you, we have a large number of legislators that carry every day in the Capitol,” said Kelley, which was legalized in 2011. “And we have more school children around us on an average day than almost any teacher in this state. But I guarantee you, if there ever was a gunman in the Capitol, we wouldn’t hesitate to use whatever action necessary to protect ourselves or the citizens and constituents visiting the Capitol. And I would expect the same from teachers.”
Kelley’s bill doesn’t include specific regulations or requirements for a teacher or administrator bringing a firearm to school. He said he “wanted to get the idea out and have the opportunity for people to express their concerns.”
Some potential requirements could be, he said, requiring personnel to carry the gun “on their person” at all times. That, he said, would prevent a student from reaching into a desk and finding a teacher's gun.
He also said he would amend the bill to prompt a teacher to report to an administrator that he or she is carrying a firearm. An administrator carrying a gun would have to alert the superintendent or school board members.
“That way there are people who know who has guns, what area of a school has protections in case a situation ever gets hostile,” Kelley said.
Thus far, Kelley’s bill is cosponsored by House Speaker Tim Jones, R-Eureka, incoming House Majority Leader John Diehl, R-Town and Country, and incoming House Speaker Pro Tem Jason Smith, R-Salem. But whether Kelley’s bill makes it to the finish line remains to be seen, especially since it could face opposition in the Missouri Senate.
Cox told the Beacon on Wednesday that it could be a tough sell.
“A lot of people react very, very emotionally to it and are just horribly offended by the notion that somehow we can protect our children by having security in the form of ordinary citizens with conceal and carry permits,” Cox said.
“It’d be very controversial. It’d be a good thing to do," he added. "Whether we’d be able to get it through, I don’t know.”
Newman seeks to close 'gun show loophole'
On the other side of the debate, state Rep. Stacey Newman, D-Richmond Heights, issued a press release on Wednesday saying she would introduce legislation to require criminal background checks for all firearms sold at Missouri’s gun shows.
Newman, who mentioned the bill in an interview with the Beacon earlier this week, also said she would seek to allow law enforcement officials to remove weapons during instances of domestic violence.
“After the recent horrific massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, we must ensure that all firearms purchases, regardless of where they are sold, include the same comprehensive background checks as required for licensed firearm dealers,” Newman said in a statement. “Stopping gun sales to those who should not be permitted to buy firearms (including the mentally ill) will prevent future senseless gun violence. One hundred and eighty-one school shootings have occurred since Columbine in 1999. We cannot sit idly by and wait for a similar tragedy in Missouri. Doing nothing is no longer an option.”
Newman, who was an advocate for gun control even before she entered the legislature, may not get a favorable reception for her proposals. Cox, for instance, said gun control “is not going to happen in our General Assembly.”
And at least one Democratic – Rep. Linda Black, D-Bonne Terre – signed on as a cosponsor to Kelley’s bill, perhaps a small example of how some Democrats have drifted away from supporting firearms restrictions.
