As attorneys wrangle over the constitutionality of Missouri's new concealed weapons law, a figure from a turbulent era in the 19th century is casting his shadow through a St. Louis courtroom.

What Thomas T. Gantt said - and what he meant - as key member of a committee that helped draft the 1875 revision of the state constitution is at the crux of a trial court dispute certain to end up with the Missouri Supreme Court.

That version of the constitution added a provision to the right of citizens to bear arms, saying "this shall not justify the wearing of concealed weapons."

Records of the day show that Gantt, a prominent lawyer who once helped quell bloody riots in the streets of St. Louis, had a strong opinion in the matter. "It is a practice which cannot be too severely condemned," he said. "It is a practice fraught with the most incalculable evil."

 But do the words in the constitution mean that the Legislature is prohibited from authorizing people to carry concealed weapons, which it did earlier this year over Gov. Bob Holden's veto?

Attorney General Jay Nixon's office, the National Rifle Association and others supporting the statute say the Legislature not only has such authority but also has used it repeatedly to allow hidden guns on police, prison wardens, parole officers and judges.

St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Steven Ohmer ruled Oct. 10 that the challenge to the law was likely to succeed and issued a preliminary injunction. Once he rules on a permanent injunction, the losing side is expected to take its case to the state's high court.

A legal puzzle

As the dispute moves forward, Gantt's comments and the language of the constitution he helped to draft are key pieces in a complex legal puzzle.

For all the rancor now, the original constitutional provision apparently provoked little debate.

On May 13, 1875, Gantt, then an attorney in private practice, reported on the committee's draft of a bill of rights and preamble. He introduced the section reaffirming a citizen's right "to bear arms when he is summoned legally or under authority of law to aid the civil processes or defend the state."

Gantt said, "There will be no difference of opinion I think on that subject; but then the declaration is distinctly made that nothing contained in this provision shall sanction or justify the wearing of concealed weapons."

He noted that in at least one other state, its constitution's right to bear arms had led to a conclusion that its legislature could not make concealed weapons illegal.

"The wearing of concealed weapons is a practice which I presume meets with the general reprobation of all thinking men," Gantt continued, speaking at a time when infamous outlaw Jesse James was terrorizing Missouri.

His comments are recounted in the 12-volume Debates of the Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1875, which lawyers said appears to reflect no significant debate on the issue.

On May 25, 1875, the amendment was adopted without further discussion of concealed weapons. A year earlier, the Legislature had passed a law making them illegal anyway.

Differences over intent 

Richard Miller, an attorney for those trying to block the new law, said in court Thursday that the record of the debates showed that framers of the constitution did not mean for the Legislature to have authority to legalize concealed weapons.

"The intent is absolutely clear," he said. 

"Don't you think if they intended for the Legislature to have the right to allow concealed carry, they would have at least mentioned it? There is no mention," he said.

But in arguing in support of the statute, Alana Barragan-Scott, an assistant attorney general, said Gantt's comments don't prevent lawmakers from taking action. "The power to regulate had been reserved to the Legislature," she insisted.

Attorneys attacking the law say the authority for law officers to carry concealed guns comes from the police powers of the state. But opposing lawyers say that if the constitution bans them, not even police can wear them.

"The door is open to the Legislature, or it's shut," Michael Minton, attorney for the National Rifle Association, told Ohmer in arguments Thursday. If the plaintiffs are right, Minton said, law officers carrying concealed weapons "had better take those guns off today."

A concerned lawyer

Whatever Gantt intended, there is little question that he was concerned about the city of St. Louis and the violence it sometimes endured.

Gantt was born in Washington in 1814. He enrolled in the U.S. Military Academy in 1831, but left at the end of his second year after a disabling injury to his right leg.

After studying law and moving to St. Louis, he was appointed by President James Polk as the U.S. attorney here in 1845. Gantt won acclaim for helping victims and improving sanitation during the cholera epidemic that killed 6,000 people in the city in 1849.

In 1854, he was serving as city counselor when the Know-Nothings, members of a secret society that inveighed against Catholics and foreigners, rioted and attacked Irish residents.

The mayor, struggling to control the city, called out various volunteer military forces, including the German Pioneer Corps and the Continental Rangers, but the riot continued for two days. Gantt was captain of a volunteer force that helped quell the riot. Ten people died and 30 were wounded, historical accounts say.

The Know-Nothing riot led Gantt to write a law to "prevent riots and breaches of the peace," according to the Encyclopedia of the History of St. Louis of 1899. The book describes him in glowing terms, saying, "To courage absolutely fearless was united the gentleness of a most charitable nature."

As a national debate over slavery intensified, Gantt opposed secession, then served in the Union Army as a judge under Gen. George McClellan.

After the war, he was in private law practice and helped found the Bar Association of St. Louis. In 1875, he was elected a delegate to the Constitutional Convention.

There, Gantt spoke in favor of limiting police powers. Introducing a proposed revision of the state's bill of rights, Gantt warned that the city charter of St. Louis contained a provision allowing police at any time to enter people's homes. That was something that "ought to be impossible," he said.

The new constitution created the St. Louis Court of Appeals, the state's first appellate court, and the governor named Gantt as its first presiding judge.

Now, 114 years after his death, opponents of the concealed weapons law are lionizing Gantt, while supporters are dismissing his views.

Gannt's concern of "incalculable evil" is unsupported, said Richard Gardiner, an attorney for the National Rifle Association. "A law-abiding person should be able to carry a concealed weapon to protect himself."

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Catherine Tierney, Steve Bolhafner, Pamela Barnes and Matthew Fernandes 
of the Post-Dispatch News Research Department contributed to this report.

Reporter Peter Shinkle:
E-mail: pshinkle@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-621-5804