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Oct 19, 2023

Editorial: Jones' gun plan won't solve the crisis. She should take the fight to Jefferson City.

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones participates in a roundtable listening session on gun violence before announcing plans to propose legislation that would ban “military-grade” weapons, during a news

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones participates in a roundtable listening session on gun violence before announcing plans to propose legislation that would ban “military-grade” weapons, during a news conference Aug. 22 at Friendly Temple Church.

Hesitant as we are to dismiss any idea that might make a dent in St. Louis’ gun-violence crisis, Mayor Tishaura O. Jones’ new proposal to rid the city’s streets of “military-grade” weaponry appears to have already misfired.

The problem is three-fold:

The idea as originally described was a reasonable plan but one that, on its face, plainly violated Missouri’s unreasonably lax gun laws, with no blueprint for surviving a court challenge.

When the legislative language was subsequently released, the second problem became clear: It doesn’t do what Jones initially said it would but mainly just echoes existing federal law regarding fully automatic weapons, which (problem No. 3) aren’t even significant drivers of the city’s gun violence.

Not to overwork the firearms metaphors, but the administration needs to take another shot at this. One suggestion would be for the mayor to organize and lead a ballot-referendum effort to bring some sanity to Missouri’s state gun laws.

The root of the problem is a Republican-controlled Legislature that has spent the past decade rolling back almost every reasonable firearm restriction the state once had. Today, virtually anyone in Missouri can buy a gun from a private dealer with no criminal background check required and can carry that gun in most public places, open or concealed, with no permit necessary.

As this situation has developed in recent years, Missouri’s gun-death rate has risen to among the highest in the nation. Yes, St. Louis accounts for much of that mayhem, but the state is stubbornly preventing the city from confronting the flood of guns at the core of it.

St. Louis scored a small victory against this madness earlier this month with a new ordinance that requires people who openly carry guns in the city to have a permit and allows police to request to see it. It exploits a loophole in a state law that otherwise allows open carry with no permit. Jones was initially slow to back the idea (which was the brainchild of Alderwoman Cara Spencer, a Jones political adversary), but she signed it into law Aug. 3.

As important as it is to build upon that success, Jones’ announcement last week of a new initiative to get military-grade weapons off the streets felt less like building than pretending to build.

She said the measure would go after AR-15- and AK-47-style weapons, which are semi-automatic rifles commonly used in mass shootings. That includes last year’s shooting that killed a student and teacher on the shared campus of Central Visual Arts and Performing Arts High School and Collegiate School of Medicine & Bioscience.

In unveiling the proposal last week, Jones acknowledged that she expected state Republicans to push back — a given considering that, ludicrous as it is, state law allows utterly unfettered access to these weapons to pretty much anyone. Unlike Spencer’s earlier legislation, which offered a specific course around the state’s general prohibition on local gun laws, Jones appeared to suggest the city would simply pass this clearly illegal restriction and then try to defend it in court.

As if on cue, Republican legislators lashed out at the idea of this or any firearms restrictions in St. Louis. In hindsight, they could have saved their breath.

The legislative language for Jones’ idea was released the next day, and all it effectively does in the realm of firearms restrictions is endorse already-strict federal regulations on fully automatic weapons — machine guns — as well as short-barreled rifles or shotguns and silencers.

Most gun crimes are committed with handguns; nationally, they account for almost two-thirds of all firearms homicides. AR-15s, AK-47s and similar rifles that are semi-automatic (one round is fired with each trigger pull) kill far fewer people but are central to the gun debate because of how often they are used in mass shootings.

There’s a reason that debate generally ignores fully automatic machine guns, which spray multiple rounds when the shooter holds in the trigger: They aren’t a significant factor in murders or other crimes here or nationally. That’s because of strong federal restrictions on their manufacture, sale and possession, as well as heavy penalties for violations.

America’s success at preventing an epidemic of machine-gun violence, even as it endures mass violence from less-restricted weapons, puts the lie to the gun lobby’s claim that gun restrictions can’t work. They can and, in the case of machine guns, they have for decades.

Which makes it all the more head-scratching that this, of all issues, is where the mayor’s new proposed ordinance is focused.

Jones initially said her plan would also focus on stopping minors from getting guns. That this even has to be discussed is still more evidence of the ideological extremism that has gripped the Legislature on this topic. In the last legislative session, lawmakers killed a measure calling to restrict the carrying of firearms by children.

Jones’ legislation would address that issue by … nixing the possibility of jail time for kids caught with guns. Instead, it specifies fines of up to $500 and a sentence of community service. America’s problem with over-incarceration, especially for kids, is a legitimate debate to have, but it’s difficult to see how mandated light sentencing for firearms violations qualifies as getting tough about guns on the streets.

In fairness to Jones, Missouri law doesn’t leave a lot of options for mayors who want to address this crisis. Which is why a more productive strategy would be to change state law.

There is little indication that the intransigent gun fetishists who control Missouri government are movable on this issue. But polls show the public is amenable to universal background checks, so-called red flag laws, permit requirements for carrying and other commonsense ideas.

The Missouri public has already overruled their extremist state Legislature on issues like marijuana and the minimum wage — and those lawmakers see the threat of an abortion-rights referendum as so significant that they’re trying to change the voting rules.

Jones’ bully pulpit would be put to better use by organizing political allies in Kansas City and elsewhere and leading an effort to confront St. Louis’ gun-violence crisis at its source: Jefferson City. Shooting legislative blanks in City Hall won’t help.

Views from the editorial board, opinions from guest and national columnists plus the latest letters from our readers.

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