ST. LOUIS — On Monday, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones will head to Washington D.C. to celebrate the Safer Communities Act signing alongside President Joe Biden.
The law was signed about two weeks ago.
Mayor Jones said in a statement, “Americans should be able to buy groceries, go to church, walk through our neighborhoods, march in a parade or drop our kids off at school without fear of gun violence.”
The Safer Communities Act strengthens background checks for people looking to buy a gun under the age of 21 and even funds mental health and community violence intervention programs; something St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts said there needs to be more of.
"One of the programs I'm involved in is the National Child Safety Council where we go into the schools and we talk about gun safety, bullying and that kind of thing but I think we need more programs like that that would help us reach the children and from that point on go forward," Sheriff Betts said.
On another side of this issue, Tony Caito is the Co-Owner of Shooter’s Firearms and Indoor Range.
5 On Your Side’s Laura Barczewski asked Caito, “What do you think about the idea of strengthening background checks?”
“I think strengthening background checks is redundant because you’ve already got most of these laws on paper and until you start enforcing those new laws are not going to change what’s going on in the world,” Caito said.
The new law also provides federal funding to implement red flag laws which Caito said weren’t necessarily effective in the Highland Park shooter’s case.
“That man there had how many red flags, three red flags against him and it still fell through. You can blame the dad, you can blame whatever you want to but on the same note it was the kid that did the act it wasn’t the gun’s fault, dad didn’t make him do it, he did it,” Caito said.
In 2021, Missouri Governor Mike Parson signed a bill into law that declares “invalid” many federal gun regulations that don’t have an equivalent in Missouri law. These include statutes covering weapons registration and tracking, and possession of firearms by some domestic violence offenders.
Under the law, local departments are barred from enforcing them, or risk being sued for $50,000 by private citizens who believe their Second Amendment rights have been violated.
Police are also prohibited from giving “material aid and support” to federal agents and prosecutors in enforcing those “invalid” laws against “law-abiding citizens” — defined as those who Missouri law permits to have a gun.