by Dave Workman
Senior Editor

Anti-gun Missouri Gov. Bob Holden wasted no time predicting that concealed carry—approved by that state’s Supreme Court in a 5-2 ruling Feb. 26—would result in harm to children, church goers and voters on election day.

On the other hand, celebrated author John Ross, a Missouri resident, told Gun Week, “I think the Berlin wall has come down in Missouri and they’re not going to put it back up.”

In remarks that reflected the governor’s anger toward the prospect of law-abiding Missouri citizens arming themselves for personal protection, Holden was quoted by The St. Louis Post-Dispatch insisting, “This law should have never been enacted over the will of the citizens. It is poorly drafted legislation that will allow any permit holder to carry a weapon into schools, school buses, places of worship, and polling places on election day.”

The governor apparently was not familiar with the law, which was passed last year over his veto, was challenged in court and declared unconstitutional, then appealed to the state high court where the lower court was reversed. The law prohibits concealed carry in police stations, prisons, courthouses, airports, hospitals, sports arenas that seat at least 5,000 persons, and amusement parks. Guns are also specifically prohibited in schools, child care facilities, churches, college campuses, bars and casinos unless an exception is granted.

Muddling the ruling was a provision that four counties—Camden, Cape Girardeau, Green and Jackson—could opt out of enforcement of the law because of an unresolved issue over funding. Legislation has already been introduced to fix that.

Yet, while Holden was furious about the Supreme Court ruling that upheld the legislature’s override of his veto, and while Attorney General Jay Nixon was asking county sheriffs to delay issuing licenses over that contested tenet of the ruling, Missouri gunowners were celebrating.

Gladstone attorney Kevin Jamison, president of the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance, told Gun Week, “We’re pretty happy. We’ll be completely happy when those four remaining counties are taken care of.”

That might not take long, as sheriffs in Cape Girardeau, Greene and Camden counties reportedly will start issuing licenses despite the high court’s caveat allowing them to waver.

Jamison stressed that concealed carry is legal in the entire state, and that even in counties that do not immediately issue licenses, residents might simply obtain a non-resident CPL from another state and use it legally. He also said non-residents visiting Missouri are now “good to go” by carrying on their own state’s CPL in Missouri.

Ross, author of Unintended Consequences—a novel that has achieved cult status in the gun rights community—said he immediately resumed scheduling gun safety courses after the Supreme Court issued its ruling. He also said there would probably be a legal effort to secure a $225,000 bond that had been required of the plaintiffs in the case, to compensate gun range operators, instructors and even private citizens, for loss of revenue from the delay in conducting courses, or for the inability to exercise a legal right during the four months the law was snagged in legal limbo.

“Every person over 21 without a criminal record had his legal ability to carry in his car delayed for four months,” Ross observed, “and what’s that worth? Isn’t that worth something? Wouldn’t you agree that there is a damage?”

The majority opinion was written by Judge Stephen M. Limbaugh, former prosecutor in Cape Girardeau County.

In his brief opinion, Limbaugh, quoted the state constitution’s right to keep and bear arms language: “That the right of every citizen to keep and bear arms in defense of his home, person and property, or when lawfully summoned in aid of the civil power, shall not be questioned; but this shall not justify the wearing of concealed weapons.”

Limbaugh then wrote, “The words of the last clause are plain and unambiguous. Read in proper grammatical context, and giving the words their common usage, this clause does not prohibit wearing concealed weapons. Rather, it prohibits a person from invoking the constitutional right to keep and bear arms as a justification for wearing concealed weapons. The general assembly, therefore, retains its plenary power to enact legislation regarding the use and regulation of concealed weapons.”

The judge also delivered a slap at anti-gunners’ claims that the legislative override of Holden’s veto last year amounted to a usurpation of the will of the people, when voters rejected a concealed carry measure in 1999.

“No court in this state ever has held that voter defeat of a measure precludes subsequent legislative action on that same issue, and to do so now would call into question the entire concept of representative democracy.”