ST. LOUIS, Missouri — Mayor Tishaura Jones signed an open carry regulation onto the city's ordinance books Thursday afternoon after initially expressing some concern that the proposal might be unconstitutional.
If someone does sue the city to challenge the new open carry restrictions, the measure "would most likely be upheld by the courts," according to a retired conservative judge who has a long history of defending the Second Amendment.
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In a June 26 letter to Alderwoman Cara Spencer (D-8th Ward), retired judge Robert Dierker analyzed her proposal and found it was "within the authority" of the City Charter, in "complete harmony with" state law, and "conforms to the Second Amendment and Missouri Constitution."
In his book, 'The Tyranny of Tolerance,' Dierker wrote, "Liberals have a way of ignoring the truth about the right to keep and bear arms."
He highlighted his unusual agreement with a progressive City Hall in a Thursday interview on 'The Record.'
"I told Alderman Spencer that the two extremes have met in the middle here, and I we find ourselves agreeing with each other on this particular proposition," Dierker said. "I could be accused of switching sides, but I don't think so, because I think historically, this is the type of measure that is entirely consistent with the original understanding of the Second Amendment."
See the full interview from 'The Record' here:
"While Judge Dierker and I typically would politically disagree on many, many issues," Spencer said, "trying to understand what could be the opposition here is really important in making sure we're not putting the city at undue risk for a lawsuit that could cost us real money."
"I think it's important that people of all political ideologies work with everybody," she said, noting Missouri is a red state. "That's the way we're going to find compromise."
The Republican-led state legislature had previously pre-empted local cities and towns from enacting any gun control measures, but she said her proposal exploited a 'loophole' in the state law that was hiding in plain sight for years.
"I confess that I didn't see it when it was enacted; it was brought to my attention," Dierker said. "It's an open door for this very specific regulation."
"This type of regulation -- which is not an absolute ban and does not impose insuperable barriers on people being able to carry weapons, but is a licensing regulation -- of a type that historically has been upheld. So I think it passes muster from the standpoint of all sources of authority."
Dierker's letter was furnished to the Board of Aldermen's Public Safety Committee in early July. The board later voted unanimously to adopt Spencer's proposal, which would require anyone visibly carrying a firearm within St. Louis city limits to have a state-issued concealed carry permit. Missouri only issues concealed carry permits to residents ages 19 and up.
"We've seen so many videos of children walking around with semiautomatic weapons in a really, really flagrant, aggressive manner, and this will address that," Spencer said.
"I've heard overwhelmingly from our police department that their hands are tied right now. And that's a really volatile situation," she said. "It's become commonplace. You see AR-15 semiautomatic weapons all over the neighborhoods of the city of St Louis on a regular basis. And this is a really, really dangerous, volatile situation that we're in."
Police officers "look forward to being able to engage," Spencer said, though she cautioned that the plan won't "solve gun violence overnight."
"I think it's going to roll out in a slow manner," she said. "Police officers are going to start to be able to approach folks and say, 'Look, I know this is legal. It has been legal for a long time, but there's a new ordinance in place and we're going to start enforcing this.'"
The mayor's office announced that she had signed the bill late in the afternoon on Thursday. She didn't hold a press conference or a bill signing ceremony. A press release from her office suggested that perhaps the measure may have little ultimate effect on violent crime.
"We need to use every tool in our toolbox to make our communities safer, no matter the scale,” Jones said in a statement.
In text messages recently disclosed through an open records request, Jones had privately expressed skepticism that gun laws reduce violent crime.
"Chicago has strict gun laws as well but that doesn’t deter gun violence," Jones wrote in March. "It's about investing in the people."
Yet, in her statement announcing she had signed the open carry restriction, she suggested the city could still do more in the months ahead.
"My office has been preparing further commonsense gun safety legislation, and we look forward to partnering with the Board on their return to help protect St. Louis families," she said.
The remarks come three days after Jones visited Kansas City to attend a gun violence roundtable discussion with Moms Demand Action. Afterward, she told reporters that "our hands are tied as mayors to enact common-sense gun safety laws on the local level."
"I was shocked," Spencer said when she heard Jones' comment in local news reports. "Considering we have a bill on her desk that would start to address the open carrying of firearms? I was certainly shocked by the mayor's comments that our hands are tied when we have a very constructive measure before her waiting to be signed."
After Jones signed the proposal, Spencer and the mayor both issued statements thanking each other for their cooperation, though the two political rivals have an otherwise chilly relationship.
Because public safety is guaranteed to be a central theme in Jones' re-election campaign, political observers were watching closely to see how Jones would handle Spencer's proposal, especially considering that the Alderwoman may emerge as a potential challenger in the 2025 election.
The mayor's father, Virvus Jones, had publicly assailed the idea as the return of 'stop-and-frisk,' a notion Spencer rejected.
"There was some rightful concern that this was going to have the potential of being enforced in a selective manner and one that was biased, particularly in a racial sense," Spencer explained. "Those are very valid concerns. We worked through them."
She says the city will closely monitor how police enforce the ordinance and produce annual reports to track to make sure it "is not 'stop-and-frisk,' or something that's going to be unfairly targeting folks in marginalized communities."
People caught violating the new ordinance can be charged with “unlawful display of a weapon," which can carry a penalty for adults of a fine and up to 30 days in jail, or a fine and community service for juveniles.
Does Spencer trust police to enforce the proposal without bias?
"Unfortunately, we have a history of some unfair policing in the city of St. Louis," she said. "But overall, I do trust that our police department wants to get guns out of the hands of kids."
The Record with Mark Maxwell
An in-depth look at politics in Missouri and Illinois, featuring analysis and interviews with politicians and other newsmakers. See full episode of The Record here: