On Tuesday, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura O. Jones (D) announced her intention to ban AR-15s and AK-47s within the city limits. The Board of Aldermen will reportedly consider that new restriction along with several other anti-gun measures.
Those include new regulations on gun kits, measures aimed at stopping minors from obtaining weapons and curbing random gunfire on holidays such as New Year’s Day and July 4th.
As for keeping firearms out of the hands of minors and avoiding irresponsibly firing weapons in the air, these are efforts responsible gun owners can get behind. But blanket and arbitrary gun bans? No.
Jones laid down the gauntlet, declaring that city leaders are “ready to fight like hell at the local level to prevent gun violence, protect our babies and to keep our communities safe.”
She even fell back on the anti-Second Amendment trope of “common sense” gun safety laws. Sweeping new restrictions that violate constitutional guarantees hardly qualify as common sense.
In a moment of honesty that Jones apparently now regrets, the mayor made a private confession about the ineffectiveness of gun control in other cities. In July, an open records request revealed her personal texts acknowledging that sweeping gun laws do not work.
“Chicago has strict gun laws as well, but that doesn’t deter gun violence,” she texted to her father and a political advisor in March. “It’s about investing in the people.”
This message revealed an honest understanding of the futility of sweeping bans that lead to zero positive results.
But now, out of private conversation and in the public eye, Jones falls back on blaming inanimate objects for the violent acts of criminals. And in direct defiance of state law, St. Louis is readying to pass a flurry of statutes that will only affect law-abiding citizens.
There are many issues with this stance, not the least of which is the sheer futility of throwing waves of gun laws at the voters instead of going after violent criminals. Then there’s Missouri law, which reads as follows:
“The General Assembly hereby occupies and preempts the entire field of legislation touching in any way firearms, components, ammunition and supplies to the complete exclusion of any order, ordinance or regulation by any political subdivision of this state.”
“Complete exclusion” is rather clear terminology. Of course, anti-gun zealots are never swayed by “shall not be infringed,” so it may be an uphill battle.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) likewise laid down his own gauntlet. He pointed to the obvious fact that city leaders’ intentions are illegal and pledged to fight “any effort to infringe on the right of the people of Missouri to keep and bear arms.”
St. Louis is one of the murder capitals of the U.S. The city registered 200 homicides in 2022, 201 in 2021, and a staggering 263 in 2020 according to figures released by the St. Louis Police Department. It consistently ranks at or near the top of American cities for homicide deaths.
With this in mind, it is at least understandable that city leaders want to do “something.”
However, that something should be legal and logically thought out. It should also be effective, otherwise it is merely window dressing. Until the actions of violent criminals are directly addressed, Jones and other city leaders are merely rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
