by The Missouri General Assembly overrode the earlier veto by Gov. Jay Nixon (D-MO) of Senate Bill 656 which now allows any person legally entitled to possess a firearm to carry that firearm without a permit. SB 656 also created lifetime carry permits, expanded both the castle doctrine and stand your ground protections, gave military members a longer period of time to renew their permits, and limits the cost of a permit to $100. The bill did not do away with permits but made the need for one pretty much irrelevant.
The override vote in the Senate was 24-6 and 112-41 in the House of Representatives. The official roll call vote breakdown of the Senate override has not been published as of yet.
The provisions of SB 656 with the exception of constitutional carry become effective in 30 days. Constitutional carry will not become effective until January 1, 2017. SB 656 rewrote Section 571.130 of the Missouri Revised Statutes which previously made it a crime to carry a weapon including a firearm concealed without a permit. The revision now makes it a crime to carry a concealed weapon in places where it is forbidden by Section 571.107. These places include correctional facilities, police stations, polling places on Election Day, court houses, and the like.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Gov. Nixon and other Democrats contend this will make the state less safe:
Nixon has said the bill would make the state less safe by taking power away from local law enforcement, who under current law issue permits to citizens who have completed a firearm safety training course and passed a background check.
Getting weapons without training raised a red flag even for gun-friendly Democrats.
“I don’t think it’s a burden to take an eight-hour course to understand the dos and the don’ts, the shoulds and the shouldn’ts, of carrying a loaded firearm,” said Sen. Jason Holsman, D-Kansas City, who waved his own concealed carry permit while speaking on the Senate floor.
St. Louis lawmakers said the lack of training would make the city more dangerous.
“We’re putting citizens in the place of law enforcement who have training and skills and experience,” said Rep. Kim Gardner, a Democrat who is set to become the next St. Louis circuit attorney.
Sponsoring Sen. Brian Munzlinger, R-Williamstown, said the bill would give law-abiding Missourians the right to conceal and carry in places that already allow permitless open carry. It will take effect in 2017.
The video below from KMOV St Louis shows some of the debate over the bill’s override in the House. St. Rep. Stacey Newman (D-St. Louis), the reigning poster girl of Mayor Bloomberg’s Demanding Mommies, says “the bill we just passed will ensure, guarantee it, more gun deaths.”
I'm now trying to figure out why it's not a burden to have to take a training class for eight hours (which in my area run an average of 80 – 125 bucks and you generally buy your own ammo) but it's an insurmountable burden to come up with anything from zero to ten bucks for a state issued ID that you might need to vote.
Now isn't that something to ponder. Here in North Carolina, you could get a state issued ID for FREE if you didn't have a driver's license and that was found to discriminate.
The bill did not do away with permits but made the need for one pretty much irrelevant.
That depends. They won't protect you from the Federal "School Gun Free Zone" law, which covers anything within 1,000 feet of a school property line, i.e. most of most cities. Nor open carry in municipalities than ban it by ordinance, and I've heard 2nd hand but from a legislator I trust that this includes concealed carry as well. Plus of course avoiding NICS checks, and reciprocity with other states. On the other hand, neighboring Kansas went Constitutional Carry a year and a half ago (pointing that out stops a lot of "discussions" cold), so it's not quite so restricting if you live in the western part of the state.
In general, the safety of carrying without a license will depend on how well the legislature drafted the bill, by removing what they thought had made it criminal (and not counting public transit, which is another law and was "compromised" out of this round of legislation). Any mistakes they made will most certainly be exploited by the usual suspects, including our Missouri Plan picked judges, who I expect to nullify the "Stand Your Ground" provision as soon as it reaches them, like they did to our strong Castle Doctrine.