When Missouri Senate Bill 656 was introduced in 2016, it was relatively modest legislation that proposed capping the amount county sheriffs could charge for a concealed handgun permit.
By the time it passed, with both houses of the Legislature overturning the governor’s veto, it had become one of the most expansive gun-rights laws in the country.
The gun lobby fought hard to pass the bill. The group some lawmakers credited with providing crucial momentum was not so much the National Rifle Association, the powerful national lobbying organization, but rather the Missouri Firearms Coalition, an aggressive grassroots operation founded in 2015.
With major gun-rights legislation stalled in…
