JEFFERSON CITY
- Missouri gun-rights advocates brought a mixture of
religion, anti-communist rhetoric and calls for personal freedom
to the Capitol on Wednesday in their annual push for a law
legalizing concealed guns.
More than 200 supporters who gathered in the rotunda cheered
as speakers warned lawmakers that they would pay at the ballot
box if they opposed bills in the House and the Senate.
"If legislators want to stay in office, they have to
start listening to us and give us the respect we deserve,"
said Randy Farr, a Kansas City postal worker who is president of
the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance.
A major target of speakers' wrath was Gov. Bob Holden, who
has promised to veto any bill that expands the authority to
carry guns.
Kevin Jamison, a Gladstone lawyer who is vice president of
the gun-rights group Missourians for Personal Safety, said an
estimated 30 Missourians were killed each year because the
state's prohibition on concealed weapons prevented them from
defending themselves.
"No doubt the governor says, `That's 30 people who
wouldn't have voted for us anyway,' " Jamison said.
He told the crowd not to be discouraged by opponents who
referred to gun advocates as Neanderthals. Jamison urged them to
take pride in the slur "gun nut" by dropping off
walnuts dyed orange at the governor's office.
The orange, he said, signifies the safety measures that gun
nuts practice, modeled after the orange vests that hunters wear.
Really big gun nuts, he said, could drop off orange coconuts.
While dropping off the nuts, advocates should tell the
governor's staff that they will never give up, he said.
"Tell the governor that the gun nuts are back,"
Jamison said. "Tell him we will keep coming back. Tell him
our sons will come back. Tell him our granddaughters will come
back. Tell him when we die, we will come back and haunt
him."
By early afternoon, about 10 coconuts and several dozen
walnuts had been dropped off in the governor's reception area.
Holden spokesman Jerry Nachtigal said the governor was
undeterred.
"The governor believes the voters have spoken on this
issue," Nachtigal said. "He fully supports the rights
of individuals to own guns and to hunt. But we do not need to
expand the concealed-carry laws."
Nachtigal was referring to the 1999 ballot proposal that
would have authorized concealed weapons in Missouri. The
proposal failed 52 percent to 48 percent, even though gun-rights
groups outspent their opposition nearly 5-1.
Another speaker said Holden ought to "quit hiding behind
the skirts of suburban misinformed mommies" -- a reference
to the overwhelming rejection of the ballot proposition in St.
Louis County. Others called the ban on concealed weapons racist
and socialist.
Another decried the thousands of "Marxist and humanist
professors" at U.S. universities who threaten Second
Amendment rights to possess guns. At one point the crowd was led
in a prayer that sought divine intervention in their efforts to
persuade lawmakers to lift the ban on concealed guns.
Most speakers stuck to less-global issues. Greg Jeffery,
legislative chairman of the Second Amendment Coalition of
Missouri, told the rally that 17 states had approved the
carrying of concealed weapons in the 11 years that Missouri had
considered the idea.
"This (proposal) allows us to ask the government for
permission to carry a concealed gun so we can exercise our right
to protect ourselves when we leave home," Jeffery said.
"It's as simple as that .... It works in 33 other states.
It will work here. No more excuses. Pass this bill."
Wilma Darlington, a district coordinator with Concerned Women
for America, said a concealed handgun she carried might have
saved her life when she was traveling at night through a rough
section of Kansas City, Kan.
Darlington, who lives in Belton, said two men in a car had
tried to force her off the road. She flashed a gun she had in
her briefcase, and the two men sped away.
"I was illegal," she said. "But I was alive.
My husband has a saying: `It's better to deal with the
prevention of crime than the consequences.' "
