Missouri state legislators have overridden the governor’s veto of a bill restoring much of the right of keeping and bearing arms.
By a vote of 24-6 in the state senate and 112-41 in the state house of representatives, the majority Republican legislature surmounted the constitutionally mandated two-thirds majority on Wednesday for nullifying Governor Jay Nixon’s veto of Senate Bill 656. The bill thus becomes state law, despite Nixon’s effort to retain his reputation as a reliable foe of the Second Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms it protects.
As The New American reported earlier:
The act supports the Second Amendment in several key ways:
A so-called “stand your ground” provision allows residents to “use physical force upon another person when and to the extent he or she reasonably believes such force to be necessary to defend himself or herself or a third person from what he or she reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful force by such other person”;
“Open carrying of a firearm may not be prohibited”;
“No person carrying a concealed or unconcealed handgun may be disarmed or physically restrained by a law enforcement officer unless under arrest or if there is no reasonable and articulable suspicion of criminal activity”;
“[It] allows a school district to designate one or more school teachers or administrators…to carry a concealed firearm”;
“[N]o licensed health care professional or person under the supervision of the professional may be required by law to ask a patient whether he or she owns or has access to a firearm, document firearm ownership or access in a patient’s medical records, or notify any governmental entity of the identity of a patient based solely on the patient’s status as a firearm owner or the patient’s access to a firearm.”
Now that the measure is the law in the Show Me State, Missouri becomes the tenth state in the union to legalize so-called “constitutional carry” of firearms.
It was no easy row hoed by the bill and its legislative supporters. Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, poured millions of dollars into advertising in Missouri aimed at convincing voters to pressure their representatives to not attempt an override of Governor Nixon’s veto of the bill.
According to predictions published in local media, Bloomberg’s group, in tandem with Moms Demand Action (an anti-gun rights group), were confident that their media blitz would nudge enough fence-sitting legislators into the camp of the confiscators.
Liberty-1, Tyranny-0.
The proponents of disarmament see danger in the legalizing of open carry.
Becky Morgan, a representative of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, claimed that the bill was hurried through the legislature, leaving representatives rushed into voting on the veto.
“This bill was rushed through on the very last day of session and then again rushed through on a veto session. so there wasn’t enough debate, there wasn’t enough talk on this bill,” Morgan said. “And so it’s a very dangerous position to put the residents of Missouri in.”
One wonders how an armed citizenry is in greater danger than an unarmed citizenry.
Any effort to consolidate control of weapons in the hands of government or other approved agents will ultimately victimize a wide band of citizens who will obey the law, even when that law leaves them vulnerable to the amoral outliers in society who will disregard preexisting laws (and any additions) forbidding the carrying of weapons and the use of them in homicides.
Fortunately, those in Missouri who will pursue mayhem regardless of legal restrictions will now know that many of those innocent men and women they would target may now be armed and able to defend themselves.
Ultimately, though, defense of the right of people to keep and bear arms is based neither on logic nor legislative supremacy. The right to protect oneself is a natural right and need not be defended at all.
The purpose of bearing arms — the timeless purpose — is now and has been throughout history, to defend oneself against tyrants. This, our Founders believed, was the “first law of nature.”
Maintaining liberty was believed by them to be a Christian obligation, and that duty was discharged fully and finally only by a people armed and able to defeat despots.
Thanks to their elected representatives’ successful stand against the governor’s determination to disarm his constituents, Missourians may now legally enjoy a bit more of their natural rights.
