The issue that for so many years triggered emotional debate in Missouri seems to have quietly subsided since the Missouri Supreme Court ruled one year ago today that concealed guns were constitutional but the law allowing them contained a funding flaw.
Today, Missourians everywhere outside St. Louis city and county can apply for concealed-gun permits. Yet only one quarter of the projected number have actually done so. The once confusing patchwork of counties issuing permits has cleared up. And contrary to some predictions, there appears to be neither a verifiable spike nor decline in gun crimes attributable to the law.
Missouri’s concealed-gun law essentially has become just another law.
"We heard before that bar fights were going to turn into gun fights and all that," said Tim Oliver, a Boone County firearms trainer who runs the concealed-guns Web site LearnToCarry.com. "It just hasn’t been a problem anywhere."
Like Oliver, Kansas City attorney Richard Miller isn’t aware of major problems caused by Missouri concealed-gun permit holders. But that’s partly because the names of permit holders are kept secret under the state law.
"Is there any proof out there that concealed-carry holders are preventing crimes, which was one of their arguments? We’ll never know that," said Miller, one of the attorneys who challenged the constitutionality of the law. "Is there any proof that conceal-carry holders are engaged in criminal activity? We’ll never know that, because the permits are closed records."
Missouri’s law allows most adults age 23 and older to apply to their county sheriffs for concealed-weapons permits after passing a firearms training course, background check and paying a fee of up to $100.
Last year’s Supreme Court ruling upheld the General Assembly’s constitutional authority to legalize concealed guns.
But it said the fee could amount to an unconstitutional, unfunded mandate - a state-imposed program that requires county governments to pick up the tab.
That’s because the law did not specifically allow the fee to cover the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s fingerprint background check nor the sheriffs’ personnel cost for processing applications.
The Supreme Court said four counties - for which cost evidence had been presented during trial - did not have to issue permits.
But all four have chosen to do so anyway.
As of yesterday, 15,442 concealed-gun background check applications had been submitted to the highway patrol, a quarter of the 60,000 first-year applicants the patrol had predicted when the law passed. Only Jefferson County has more than 1,000 permit applicants, although St. Charles and Greene counties are not far behind.
Miller and St. Louis attorney Burton Newman continue to pursue a Moniteau County lawsuit claiming that to issue permits, the county had to use local tax money for a purpose not approved by local voters in violation of the state constitution.
But the Moniteau County lawsuit lacks the urgency of the initial constitutional challenge. Although they filed the Moniteau County suit last March, the plaintiffs’ attorneys have yet to take depositions.
Separate bills attempting to fix the funding flaw have been endorsed by House and Senate committees, but they are not among the top priorities of legislative leaders.
The bills would allow the fees to cover all costs related to processing concealed-gun permits and would let counties seek state reimbursement if their costs exceeded the maximum $100 fee.