Tag: Missouri Senate

Watch LIVE at 7:30pm Eastern: President Trump will make a stop in Columbia, MO on his Make America Great Again rally tour before Tuesday's midterm election. Trump is in Missouri campaigning for Republican Josh Hawley, who hopes to unseat Democratic…

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 Washington, much of the action has shifted to the states, where self-described “no compromise” groups such as the Missouri Firearms Coalition have mobilized activists in favor of pro-gun laws, according to Reuters interviews with gun-rights groups in more than a dozen states, lawmakers and NRA supporters. These groups have become increasingly active in promoting a pro-gun agenda in many states, unafraid of alienating lawmakers who waver on gun rights. In many cases, they say they would rather lose a legislative fight on principle than compromise and support a watered-down bill. “It’s always kind of interesting when you see a lot of people in the gun control community talk about how radical the NRA is,” said Pruett, whose group organized an email and telephone campaign to pass a 2016 Idaho law allowing people to carry concealed handguns without a permit, also known as “constitutional carry.” Missouri Firearms Coalition political adviser Aaron Dorr says the NRA fought against constitutional carry for years, considering it too much of a longshot, and only came on board once passage was certain. It has protected firearms manufacturers from liability for gun violence and pushed a ban on U.S. health officials from promoting gun control. In 2005, it shepherded through Florida’s landmark stand-your-ground law, then repeated the feat in nearly half the states.