St. Louis Post-Dispatch. March 6, 2022.
Editorial: As Missouri gun deaths mount, lawmakers aim to shoot down remaining safeguards.
In a development that should shock exactly no one, a national study has ranked Missouri near the bottom of the nation in terms of the strength of its gun laws — and near the top in per capita gun deaths. The correlation is undeniable: Missourians, living in a state that has gutted most of its previous restrictions on firearms, are nearly twice as likely to die from gun violence than their neighbors in Illinois, which imposes rational restrictions.
And how are Missouri legislators responding to this continuing crisis? By trying to make it even easier for convicted criminals to lay their hands on guns, easier to bring guns into churches, schools and trains, and harder for police to enforce what few gun laws are on the books.
This is insanity.
Polls show overwhelming majorities of Americans, including most gun owners, favor reasonable reforms like universal criminal background checks for all gun purchases. That’s confirmation that on gun rights, as on most issues, the broad middle of America isn’t radical, but reasonable, respecting individual rights but in balance with a society’s responsibility to keep its people safe.
But try telling that to the ruling Republicans of the Missouri Legislature. As Missouri has veered from the political center to the hard right in recent years, a rotating cadre of reactionary ideologues in Jefferson City has...
Carter alleges false claims after being linked to a Jane Doe lawsuit that initially named Sean “Diddy” Combs A federal judge has ordered that Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter’s lawsuit accusing a Jane Doe and ...