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In Missouri, Grassroots Effort Beats NRA Dollars

Join Together Online
4/15/1999

Even the people who worked hardest to defeat Proposition B, the recent ballot initiative to establish a concealed-carry handgun law in Missouri, admit that on election day April 7 they thought they would lose. But in the end, after the ballots were counted and Missouri voters had rejected the measure by 52 percent to 48 percent, the conclusion was inescapable and pleasant: The anti-Proposition B forces had underestimated their own effectiveness.

Outspent nearly five to one by the measure's chief financial backer, the National Rifle Association, a broad coalition mobilized in the old-fashioned grassroots way to convince Missourians to go the polls and vote no on Proposition B. Pre-election forecasts of light voter turnout couldn't have been more wrong. With some 1.3 million ballots cast, the turnout set an all-time record for an April election in Missouri.

"I was surprised," says Kansas City Counselor Alvin Brooks. "With all that (NRA) money, those signs, the billboards, all the stuff on radio and TV, I didn't think we had a chance. I was shocked."

As late as 9:30 p.m. on election night, the pro-Prop B forces held a lead. But then the ballots from St. Louis County came in, and in that most urban of Missouri locales, voters rejected Proposition B by a two-to-one margin. Before midnight, Proposition B's backers conceded defeat.

The gap between the state's rural and urban voters was probably the least surprising outcome of this closely watched election. Perhaps the most surprising was the record turnout and what that says about both the power of effective organizing and the real feelings that the public hold toward gun laws.

To James Nunnelly, the Anti-Drug Program administrator at the Jackson County Prosecutor's Office in Kansas City, the late surge of voter interest was largely the result of what he calls a calculated "two-minute offense"--a football term for working hard and fast to score as a game's end nears--by public officials.

"The proponents (of Proposition B) actually had an advantage up until the final weekend," he says. "By this time, their modus operandi was clear, and then the public officials went into their two-minute offense. During that two-minute offense, public officials started talking about how they didn't believe the low-turnout projection. They started talking more along the lines that there was going to be a heavy turnout. It also included using the community-agency networks, including those in the substance-abuse networks."

In their corner of the state, Brooks and Nunnelly say, two other noteworthy developments, both occurring two days before the election on Easter Sunday, had a strong influence on voters. First, popular Kansas City Star columnist Rhonda Criss Lokeman ripped the NRA in her column that day for its effort to appeal to women's fears. Second, clergymen in more than 50 Kansas City churches included a "vote no" insert in their Easter Sunday church bulletins, and many of them spoke out against the ballot initiative from the pulpit.

In the more rural areas of the state, where polls revealed strong support for Proposition B, the most realistic goal for opponents was to reduce the backers' victory margins. Chuck Denney, a community development specialist, worked on his own in southwestern Missouri to convince people that Proposition B was a bad idea. His approach, he says, was to make a "kinder and gentler" argument, "as opposed to the way I felt Prop B was written and how it fed upon people's fear and paranoia."

"Sometimes I think that the most important thing you can do when you're being an advocate for something is just to be very truthful and honest and factual in your position and to make sure that you ask the right questions of those who might disagree with you," he says.

To Denny, one of the keys to victory was clear-headed consistency of the opponents' arguments about why Proposition B should be defeated.

"We certainly couldn't match the proponents dollar for dollar," he says. "But what we could match them with was the number of people who were willing to work on the issue. I think we more than matched them in desire. And we did not react to some of the tactics used by some of the pro-gun groups. We just said, 'Here are our basic concerns about it and here are the questions we have.' I think that throughout all of the debate, the questions that we had were never satisfactorily answered for the majority of Missourians."

Among the problems with the proposed bill that opponents consistently pointed was its permit-requirement leniency. For instance, says Denny, convicted stalkers and domestic abusers could get permits five years after their crimes and mentally ill persons could carry handguns so long as they are not adjudicated as incompetent or have not spent time in a mental institution.

One of the lessons that gun-violence-prevention people can learn from the Missouri experience, Denny says, is that "perhaps there are some misconceptions about how the majority of Americans feel about firearms and carrying them concealed. The lesson is that the American people, at the least the people in Missouri, understand that we need to look for another way to address issues in our society."

"I also think that it reflects the power of grassroots activism," he says. "The opponents (of Proposition B) did not have a lot of money to spend, but what you can do--and indeed what I did--is try to identify eight or 10 people who you know are interested who can look at things objectively and challenge them to find eight or 10 more people who will listen to the facts. It becomes kind of a synergistic thing if you can do that."

The gun lobby had proclaimed Proposition B its chance to prove that the public doesn't want restrictive gun laws. In the face of a rising legal threat embodied by cities' lawsuits to recover public costs related to gun violence, the NRA and its supporters saw Proposition B as a chance to record a badly needed victory. With the loss, however, the gun lobby will have little recourse but to revert to its standard--and highly effective--legislative lobbying efforts.

Analyzing the effects of the Proposition B vote, opponents of the measure are hoping that the gun lobby's loss in Missouri may have an effect that resonates beyond the Show-Me state's borders. As several other states currently are considering concealed-carry handgun laws via the traditional legislative process, opponents of those measures may look to the Missouri experience for assistance in how to form effective coalitions to heighten political pressure on legislators to vote no.

The Missouri outcome may influence other states' concealed-carry legislative efforts in other ways, says Joe Sudbay, director of state legislation for Handgun Control, Inc., which worked diligently (and spent more than $140,000) to defeat Proposition B. "If anyone should learn a lesson from this, it's elected officials," he says. "The lesson is that the public is not on the side of the gun lobby and that they should listen to their constituents and not to special interests."

In Missouri, much of the anti-Proposition B effort occurred within a coalition called Safe Schools and Workplaces. But other alliances, some of them quite unlikely, developed as well. For instance, says Denny, one of the most "concerned" groups were bar and tavern owners--to whom the prospect of mixing concealed weaponry with alcohol was an uncomfortable notion.

To Nunnelly, the decision by Missouri voters to defeat Proposition B was a reflection of a citizenry coming to their senses about the gun lobby and its intentions.

"In the last days before the election it became pretty clear what was occurring," he says. "You could actually talk about the opposition. You could say, 'Hey, look at what they're doing to you. They're not talking about a constitutional right; they're trying to push you into fear. They want to carry guns, but they want to push you to vote for it based on appealing to your fears. Once people saw what was going on, they could see that someone was trying to lead them down what I call a primrose path."

Nunnely takes four lessons from the defeat of Proposition B:

  • "Church power" is an underestimated political source.

  • Children's and substance-abuse agencies are very effective at convincing voters of the threats that guns bring to children and of the links between alcohol and gun violence.

  • "Outside endorsements and orchestrated confusion are unwise and unwelcome."

  • "There is an informed public that can decide what's best."

Nunnelly's fourth point, about an informed public making a wise decision, is the bitterest pill the gun lobby has had to swallow in the wake of its defeat in Missouri. It's also the lesson that can give gun-violence-prevention activists the most cause for optimism. The NRA's massive financial advantage failed against the measured reflection of Missourians.

"We didn't have $3.7 million," says Brooks, the Kansas City city counselor. "But we had a lot of prayers. We didn't have much else. But we had that."

Prepared by Join Together Staff

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