1999 Missouri Proposition B

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Proposition B in Missouri was a failed 1999 ballot measure that would have required local police authorities to issue concealed weapons permits to eligible citizens. It was a contentious issue and was narrowly rejected at the time by the electorate, but the legislature later approved similar legislation in 2003.[ citation needed ]

Contents

Supporters

Support for concealed carry laws in Missouri grew gradually throughout the 1990s. In 1991, a group to promote such laws called "the conference" was formed and that nickname was used until the Missouri Legislative Issues Council (MOLIC) was formed in 1995 for official recognition. Support for these laws increased in part as a response to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and other national gun control efforts.

After author/columnist John Ross made his attempts to convince Missouri legislators, other supporters also emerged. The NRA formed Missourians Against Crime (MAC) in 1998 as their spokesman into Missouri. This created an issue with the MOLIC membership. Negative campaigns seldom succeed in Missouri. The MOLIC organization was transformed into Missourians for Personal Safety(MPS) for the 1998 Proposition B campaign with Steve McGhee as the President. These combined efforts brought notoriety to Greg Jeffery, attorney/author Kevin Jamison, and Tim Oliver, to the forefront of their local/regional news media. As the Missouri Sport Shooting Association (MSSA), joined (unofficially) in support, they all proceeded with their regional campaigning attempts. Eventually, more and more individuals heard of these volunteers/members and took up the task to support the proposition with smaller meetings and neighborhood 'grass roots' action groups.

Police Officers generally supported the measure: "In a recent poll, more than eighty-five percent of our 1352 members favored Right-to-Carry.", Letter to St. Louis Police Chief Ron Henderson, from Sgt. John J. Johnson, President St. Louis Police Officers Association, 1/23/99." [1]

The Gateway Civil Liberties Alliance (GCLA) arose after the failure to pass the proposition in 1999; forming itself from MOLIC, MPS, and with WMSA giving support, to become the leadership and legislative clearing house for the 2003 success in passing a shall-issue law. Frequent trips to Jefferson City by Greg Jeffery (GCLA cofounder) earned him the nickname 'braintrust' to a newly created law that was adopted by Missouri in 2003. [2]

Opponents

Handgun Control, Inc., saw this as their test case before the elections in 2000 to exercise their political influence [3] and lobbied hard to defeat the referendum. [4] Political notables included the Clinton/Gore Administration [5] with Attorney General Janet Reno playing a secondary role to Hillary Clinton's activism, Governor Mel Carnahan and his daughter Robin Carnahan, the 1994 appointed [6] Secretary of State, Rebecca Cook, [7] and State Auditor, Claire McCaskill.

Robin Carnahan chaired the Safe Schools and Workplaces Committee (SSWC) and orchestrated television ads against the proposition. Also, on the weekend prior to voting day, that organization coordinated the taped phone message from Hillary Clinton to automatically dial 75,000 homes statewide with the message, "just too dangerous for Missouri families." [8]

Ballot language

The General Assembly approved the following ballot language:

Shall state or local law enforcement agencies be authorized to issue permits to law-abiding citizens at least twenty-one years of age to carry concealed firearms outside their home for personal protection after having passed a state and federal criminal background check and having completed a firearms safety training course approved by the Missouri Department of Public Safety?

After a lawsuit filed by the opponents of the measure, the language was changed. The final text read:

"Shall sheriffs, or in the case of St. Louis County, the chief of police, be required to issue permits to carry concealed firearms to citizens who apply if various statutory requirements are satisfied?" Because of the discretion given to local law enforcement to verify the accuracy of applications, the costs are uncertain. Application fees are estimated to cover most costs for the first three years. Subsequently, local governments, as a whole, may incur costs from $500,000 to $1,000,000 annually, not covered by fees.

Missouri Sport Shooting Association President Kevin Jamison described it as, "The opposition conducted a poll of the ballot language which determined that 60% of the state would vote in favor of License to Carry. Outraged that the people might "speak wrong", the Governor's lawyer filed a suit with the Missouri Supreme Court to change the ballot language. The defendants in the suit were Attorney General Jay Nixon and State Auditor Claire McCaskill." [9]

Campaign controversies

The use of official government resources by opponents of the measure was controversial.

Missouri's two US Attorneys are using the Justice Department's name and facilities to lobby against the state's concealed weapons ballot issue. Using official department letterhead, the attorneys, Edward Dowd and Stephen Hill, urged sheriffs and police chiefs across the state to rally resistance against Proposition B, which is on the ballot this April. Dowd's office is operating an 800 number which people can call to obtain anti-prop B campaigning materials. Calls to the 800 number, 1-800-214-2690, are answered with "US Attorneys Office." [10]

Some advertisements used in the campaign were deceptive, particularly an opposition ad [11] that implied Missourians would be allowed to carry Uzis [12] that continued into 2000. [13]

Results


Proposition B gained 634,361 votes in favor (48.3%) and 678,256 votes against (51.7%), thus being defeated by a margin of 3.3%. [14]

The majority of voters in rural Missouri voted in favor of Proposition B. However, urban voters, particularly in St. Louis and Kansas City, tipped the balance against Proposition B. 74.1% of the voters in the city of St. Louis, 69.5% in St. Louis County, and 71.6% in Kansas City opposed Proposition B. [14]

In 2003, the Missouri General Assembly passed new laws to enable shall-issue permits. [2]

Participant roles during 1999

The following persons played important roles in the creation of law in the State of Missouri. This is not their biography but an outline of the positions held during the 1999 Proposition B campaigns.

John Ross

Pro-2nd Amendment activist.

John Ross Author/Columnist [15]

Concealed Firearms Instructor

1998 Chairman/Co-founder; Missouri Legislative Issues Council (MOLIC).

Co-founder; Missourians for Personal Safety (MPS) [16]

Supporter, Missouri Sport Shooting Association (MSSA) [17]

Kevin Jamison

Pro-2nd Amendment activist.

Attorney/Author [18]

Co-founder; Missouri Legislative Issues Council (MOLIC)

Co-founder; Missourians for Personal Safety (MPS) [16]

2006 President, Missouri Sport Shooting Association (MSSA) [17]

Tim Oliver

Pro-2nd Amendment activist.

Conceal Carry Firearms Instructor [19]

Co-founder; Missouri Legislative Issues Council (MOLIC)

Co-founder; Missourians for Personal Safety (MPS) [16]

Supporter; Missouri Sport Shooting Association (MSSA) [17]

Greg Jeffery

Pro-2nd Amendment activist.

Co-founder; Missouri Legislative Issues Council (MOLIC)

Co-founder; Missourians for Personal Safety (MPS) [16]

Supporter, Missouri Sport Shooting Association (MSSA) [17]

Co-founder The Gateway Civil Liberties Alliance (GCLA) [20]

Legislative Consultant to Missouri Lawmakers.

Steve McGhee

Pro-2nd Amendment activist.

NRA Master Training Counselor/Instructor [21]

1998 President, Missouri Sport Shooting Association (MSSA) [17]

1999 President/Co-founder; Missourians for Personal Safety (MPS) [16]

Campaign Funding

Pro-2nd Amendment
NRA+$3 Million
Pro-Gun Control
[4]
Out of State$399,079
In State$164,000

Carnahan Participation

Pro-Gun Control activist. [23] Governor Mel Carnahan pledged neutrality.

Robin Carnahan chaired the Safe Schools and Workplaces Committee (SSWC)

1999 Federal Participation

Pro-Gun Control activist.

US Attorneys: (established 1-800-214-2690) [10] [24]

Edward Dowd (Eastern Missouri)
Stephen Hill (Western Missouri)

1999 White House Participation

Pro-Gun Control & Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act activist.

President Clinton signed Federal assault weapons ban in 1993 which expired in 2004.
Hillary Clinton gave a taped voice message to condemn Prop B.

See also

Related Research Articles

Gun laws and policies, collectively referred to as firearms regulation or gun control, regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification, and use of small arms by civilians. Laws of some countries may afford civilians a right to keep and bear arms, and have more liberal gun laws than neighboring jurisdictions. Countries that regulate access to firearms will typically restrict access to certain categories of firearms and then restrict the categories of persons who may be granted a license for access to such firearms. There may be separate licenses for hunting, sport shooting, self-defense, collecting, and concealed carry, with different sets of requirements, permissions, and responsibilities.

<i>More Guns, Less Crime</i> 1998 non-fiction book by John Lott

More Guns, Less Crime is a book by John R. Lott Jr. that says violent crime rates go down when states pass "shall issue" concealed carry laws. He presents the results of his statistical analysis of crime data for every county in the United States during 29 years from 1977 to 2005. Each edition of the book was refereed by the University of Chicago Press. The book examines city, county and state level data from the entire United States and measures the impact of 13 different types of gun control laws on crime rates. The book expands on an earlier study published in 1997 by Lott and his co-author David Mustard in The Journal of Legal Studies and by Lott and his co-author John Whitley in The Journal of Law and Economics, October 2001.

Mel Carnahan Governor of Missouri, 2000 U.S. senator-elect (1934–2000)

Melvin Eugene Carnahan was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 51st Governor of Missouri from 1993 until his death in a plane crash in 2000. A Democrat, he was elected posthumously to the U.S. Senate; his widow, Jean, served in his stead for two years until a special election.

Brady Campaign American nonprofit gun control organization

Brady: United Against Gun Violence is an American nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control and against gun violence. It is named after James "Jim" Brady, who was permanently disabled and later died in 2014 as a result of the Ronald Reagan assassination attempt of 1981, and his wife Sarah Brady, who was a chairwoman of the organization from 1989 until her death in 2015.

Proposition 65 is a California law passed by direct voter initiative in 1986 by a 63%–37% vote. Its goals are to protect drinking water sources from toxic substances that cause cancer and birth defects and to reduce or eliminate exposures to those chemicals generally, such as consumer products, by requiring warnings in advance of those exposures.

Concealed carry, or carrying a concealed weapon (CCW), is the practice of carrying a weapon in public in a concealed manner, either on one's person or in close proximity. CCW is often practiced as a means of self-defense. Every state in the United States allows for concealed carry of a handgun either permitless or with a permit, although the difficulty in obtaining a permit varies per jurisdiction.

Russ Carnahan American politician

John Russell Carnahan is an American politician from the state of Missouri. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the U.S. representative for Missouri's 3rd congressional district from 2005 to 2013.

2006 United States Senate election in Missouri

The 2006 United States Senate election in Missouri was held November 7, 2006, to decide who would serve as senator for Missouri between January 3, 2007, and January 3, 2013. The incumbent was Republican Jim Talent. Talent was elected in a special election in 2002 when he narrowly defeated incumbent Democrat Jean Carnahan. Carnahan had been appointed to the Senate seat following the posthumous election of her husband Mel Carnahan, who had died in a plane crash shortly before the 2000 election. Talent's Democratic opponent was Missouri State Auditor Claire McCaskill. Early on the morning of November 8, Talent conceded defeat to McCaskill, having faced considerable political headwinds. Talent lost the election with 47% of the vote, to 50% of the vote for McCaskill. This was the last election an incumbent Republican senator lost in Missouri.

Open carry in the United States Practice of carrying a visible firearm in some US states

In the United States, open carry refers to the practice of visibly carrying a firearm in public places, as distinguished from concealed carry, where firearms cannot be seen by the casual observer. To "carry" in this context indicates that the firearm is kept readily accessible on the person, within a holster or attached to a sling. Carrying a firearm directly in the hands, particularly in a firing position or combat stance, is known as "brandishing" and may constitute a serious crime, but that is not the mode of "carrying" discussed in this article.

Concealed carry Practice of carrying a handgun or other weapon in public in a concealed or hidden manner

Concealed carry, or carrying a concealed weapon (CCW), is the practice of carrying a weapon, either in proximity to or on one's person or in public places in a manner that hides or conceals the weapon's presence from the surrounding observers. The opposite of concealed carry is called open carry.

2002 United States Senate special election in Missouri

The 2002 United States Special Senate election in Missouri was held on November 5, 2002 to decide who would serve the rest of Democrat Mel Carnahan's term, after he died while campaigning and posthumously won the 2000 election. The winner would serve four more years until the next election in 2006. Missouri Governor Roger Wilson appointed Carnahan's wife Jean, also a Democrat, to serve temporarily. She then decided to run to serve the remainder of the term, but she was narrowly defeated by Republican nominee Jim Talent.

2008 California Proposition 6

California Proposition 6, also known as the Safe Neighborhoods Act and The Runner Initiative, is a statutory initiative that appeared on the November 2008 ballot in California. This proposition was rejected by voters on November 4 of that year.

2010 California Proposition 19 Failed measure to legalize marijuana

California Proposition 19 was a ballot initiative on the November 2, 2010 statewide ballot. It was defeated, with 53.5% of California voters voting "No" and 46.5% voting "Yes." If passed, it would have legalized various marijuana-related activities, allowed local governments to regulate these activities, permitted local governments to impose and collect marijuana-related fees and taxes, and authorized various criminal and civil penalties. In March 2010, it qualified to be on the November statewide ballot. The proposition required a simple majority in order to pass, and would have taken effect the day after the election. Yes on 19 was the official advocacy group for the initiative and California Public Safety Institute: No On Proposition 19 was the official opposition group.

Gun laws in Wisconsin Wisconsins gun law

Gun laws in Wisconsin regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the U.S. state of Wisconsin.

Gun laws in the District of Columbia District of Columbias gun law

Gun laws in the District of Columbia regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the U.S. federal district of District of Columbia.

Gun laws in Nevada Nevadas gun law

Gun laws in Nevada regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the state of Nevada in the United States.

Gun laws in New Mexico New Mexicos gun law

Gun laws in New Mexico regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the state of New Mexico in the United States.

Gun laws in North Carolina North Carolinas gun law

Gun laws in North Carolina regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the U.S. state of North Carolina.

Gun laws in Tennessee Tennessees gun law

Gun laws in Tennessee regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the state of Tennessee in the United States.

Gun laws in Virginia Virginias gun law

Gun laws in Virginia regulate the sale, possession, and use of firearms and ammunition in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States.

References

  1. ↑ "Right To Carry: The Law Enforcement Perspective". MPS/MOCCW. Retrieved 2006-09-10.
  2. 1 2 Jamison, Kevin (2003-09-17). "License to carry update". Western Missouri Shooters Alliance. Archived from the original on 2005-11-09. Retrieved 2006-09-10.
  3. ↑ 1983 The Center to Prevent Handgun Violence (CPHV), an educational outreach organization dedicated to reducing gun violence, is founded as a sister organization to HCI. (source: HCI)
  4. 1 2 "Anti Self-Defense Businesses in Missouri". MPS/MOCCW. Retrieved 2006-09-22.
  5. ↑ "Clinton's Administration is easily the most reckless in interfering with the integrity of Federal investigative agencies since that of Richard Nixon." -- NY Times editorial, "White House Ethics Meltdown", 3/4/94
  6. ↑ "Facts on women candidates and elected officials". Center for American Women and Politics. Archived from the original on 2006-09-07. Retrieved 2006-09-10.
  7. ↑ There was debate to which office held more influence between Secretary of State and/or the State Auditor. Most political watchers agreed that the Secretary of State had the authority to change the ballot language used (without review) in 1999.
  8. ↑ "NRAFAX Alert - Carnahan defeats Prop. B". MPS/MOCCW. Retrieved 2006-09-10.
  9. ↑ THE MISSOURI MIRACLE by K. L. Jamison
  10. 1 2 Bellamy, Clayton (1999-03-23). "US Attorneys use federal facilities to lobby against prop B". Missouri Digital News. Retrieved 2006-09-13.
  11. ↑ Miller, Melissa (1999-04-01). "Guns over a foot long could be concealed and carried under Prop. B". Missouri Digital News. Retrieved 2006-09-22.
  12. ↑ "MPS/MOCCW Top 5 Misleading Statements". MPS/MOCCW. Retrieved 2006-09-14.
  13. ↑ May 4, 2000: HCI releases a new television ad featuring video footage of a senior NRA official boasting that, if George W. Bush is elected President, the NRA will be working out of the White House. (source: HCI)
  14. 1 2 "Table of County Vote Totals". MPS/MOCCW. Retrieved 2006-09-13.
  15. ↑ About John Ross Archived 2012-07-18 at archive.today
  16. 1 2 3 4 5 MOCCW – Concealed Carry in Missouri
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 Missouri Sport Shooting Association for the State of Missouri
  18. ↑ Kevin L. Jamison, Attorney At Law | Welcome
  19. ↑ Tim Oliver's LTC - News & Information
  20. ↑ New and Improved! Welcome to G.C.L.A
  21. ↑ McGhee Training Services of Missouri Archived 2006-12-14 at the Wayback Machine
  22. ↑ Brutzman, Anna (1999-04-07). "Legislators try to guess why Prop B failed". Missouri Digital News. Retrieved 2006-09-22.
  23. ↑ NRAFAX Alert - Carnahan defeats Prop. B. MPS/MOCCW. Retrieved on 2006-09-18.
  24. ↑ "THE NUMBER YOU HAVE DIALED IS NOT IN SERVICE ..." MPS/MOCCW. 1999-03-29. Retrieved 2006-09-23.
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