Are we there yet? Have we finally reached the point where we can stop pretending that gun-free zones are actually free of guns — or that they keep anyone safer?
In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Time and again both mass shooters and armed criminals alike have shown their preference in selecting gun-free zones as their target of choice.
Why then, in a pro-gun state like ours, does Missouri’s General Assembly continue to fail to repeal these state mandated vulnerable victim zones from our state statutes? Especially when it comes to the one that Missouri ladies of Women for Gun Rights find to be the most dangerous and egregious one of all: the carry ban on public transit.
This law doesn’t just disarm riders — it disproportionately punishes the working poor, who depend on public transportation and often live in higher-crime neighborhoods, arguably making their need for adequate self-defense tools even more necessary and desired.
Not being allowed to carry on public transit forces them to go unarmed throughout their entire day simply because they must hop on a bus or train. This is wrong. The state is violating the Second Amendment rights of an entire class of people — those who must rely on transit.
Then consider the excessive penalty of a Class D felony that even a concealed carry permit holder could face if found to be carrying on a public bus. Unlike most of Missouri’s other restricted locations where someone with a permit who chooses to carry would only be asked to leave without facing any charge, transit riders are again being targeted by this statute with much harsher penalties than the rest of us.
Another glaring problem with this gun-free zone is once you’ve boarded a bus or train, it’s going to be very difficult if not impossible to “move to a safer spot” (as a recent post “Tips for Transit — Ensuring Safety” on the Facebook page of Metro Transit Public Safety suggested).
Just four days later, a pregnant couple was stabbed on a Metro Bus in St. Louis. I’m sure they would have moved out of the way of their attacker’s blade if they could have.
The state has no right to strip lawful individuals of their inherent right to defend themselves effectively against an unprovoked violent attack. Disarming us while at the same time trying to pass it off as somehow improving our safety is especially insulting and unacceptable.
How different might that event have ended had just one lawful citizen been able to calmly, in a non-threatening tone and manner, let the knife-wielding woman know that she was not the only one on that bus with a weapon?
Perhaps with hands raised in a surrender posture, with a simple lifting of the shirt with their non-draw hand to reveal the firearm, I suspect she would have reined in her crazy just long enough to put her knife away and get off the bus like she was told.
Whether on a bus, in a church pew, or at a family amusement park, Missourians deserve the right to protect themselves wherever they are. It’s time for lawmakers to repeal these dangerous, so-called “gun-free” zones and restore true safety to our state.
Myers is Missouri state director of Women for Gun Rights.