Gun bill still has supporters

Billy Politte recently introduced his son to a BB gun, launching what he hopes will be a lifelong passion for hunting and shooting. The boy is 4 years old.

Mary Koch says her 12-year-old daughter looks forward to Saturday mornings at the shooting range the way suburban kids anticipate the weekly soccer game.

People in Missouri's cities and suburbs wonder why the concealed carry issue won't go away. Voters supposedly put it to rest when they rejected it three years ago in a statewide referendum. So why is a concealed carry bill working its way through the state legislature?

The answer lies in rural towns such as Potosi, home of legislator Wayne Crump, who routinely sponsors gun legislation in Jefferson City. People in Kansas City associate Potosi with the state penitentiary. But this is a friendly town of about 3,000 persons, 65 miles south of St. Louis in Washington County.

Frank Meyers lives in an A-frame house on 160 acres of forest. Target-shooting skills carried him through competitions, a stint in the Navy and a career as a forester. Now retired, he showed me news clippings recognizing the shooting prowess of Potosi youths, including his own granddaughters.

For Meyers, safe gun use is a form of character development, to be passed from parent to child.

"You'll have to scrounge around to find anybody who's against concealed carry in Potosi," he told me.

Statistically, that's true. The statewide proposition passed in Washington County with more than 70 percent voter approval.

But I did find Jamie East, a young mother who was selling her hunting rifle at Express Pawn. "I personally think guns are for hunting purposes only," she said. "I know a lot of people want them for protection, but I think it's more dangerous."

And I found the mayor, Wayne Malugen, who retired after 25 years on the Potosi police force. "I'm opposed to violence and I'm opposed to people carrying weapons," he said.

Across the street at Express Pawn, though, owner Kevin Hopkins said he was depressed and angry when the concealed weapons proposition failed.

Hopkins is a Republican who votes for Crump, a gun activist Democrat. A veto of concealed carry legislation, which Gov. Bob Holden has promised, "will hurt him big time," Hopkins said.

Several men told me they broke the law to carry concealed guns.

"You know why, don't you?" asked Gary Yount, Washington County's sheriff. "Because they'd rather be judged by 12 than carried by six." It is the third time in several hours I have heard that expression.

Yount thinks concealed handguns deter crime.

"They come into the Wal-Mart and they mug these old women," he said. "Amateur criminals are going to be a little more hesitant about mugging someone if they think she's going to pull a gun."

In reality, no one has been mugged in the Potosi Wal-Mart. Violent crimes are rare in Washington County.

People say that's because it's gun country. "Everybody carries a gun in their truck," Hopkins said. "That's one of the reasons crime is down.

Wayne Crump grew up in this town, hunted in the nearby woods, practiced at the shooting range. Rumor is he used to be able to flip a quarter into the air and shoot it.

He brings those passions to the legislature, plus promises to gun groups. He doesn't shoot well enough anymore to nail the quarter, Crump told me. But he still has a target, and nothing to lose by taking his best shot.

To leave a comment for Barbara Shelly, call (816) 234-4800 and enter 4594, or send e-mail to bshelly@kcstar.com.