Missouri House Republicans scrap two gun bills after Kansas City Chiefs rally shooting

Missouri House Republicans have scrapped two gun-related bills this year following the mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory rally.

House Majority Leader Jonathan Patterson, a Lee’s Summit Republican, told The Star on Friday that House Republicans this year would no longer pursue the two bills. One would allow guns on public transit and inside churches and the other would exempt firearms and ammunition from sales taxes.

The decision follows an intense push by Democrats and others for new restrictions on firearms following Wednesday’s shooting, which killed one person and injured more than 20 others.

“While I do think both proposals are worthy of debate, they have no path to becoming law at this point,” Patterson said in a statement. “Now is not the appropriate time to be taking up those bills and therefore they will not be brought up this session.”

The decision from Patterson, who is in line to be speaker of the Missouri House next year should he win reelection, comes as local officials, Chiefs players and Kansas Citians who were at the parade and rally have called for the state to reexamine its lax approach to gun regulations.

One of the bills, from Rep. Adam Schnelting, a St. Charles Republican, would allow people with concealed carry permits to bring guns onto public transit and inside churches and other places of worship. A bill similar to Schnelting’s, filed by Sen. Nick Schroer, a St. Charles Republican, remains in the Missouri Senate.

The other bill scrapped by Patterson, from Rep. Bishop Davidson, a Republic Republican, would exempt firearms and ammunition from state and local sales tax and would have made Missouri the only state in the country that taxes food but not guns.

Patterson said he had “productive conversations” with Schnelting and Davidson about “what was in the best interest of” lawmakers, including many who were at the parade when the shooting occurred.

“As legislators, we should of course look at public policies that allowed the shooting to happen. That includes guns,” Patterson said.

But he said the state should also examine what policies contributed to two teens “taking guns to a parade and ruining their lives, while harming and killing others in broad daylight.”

“I think if we did that we’d see that this is a much bigger problem than just gun laws,” he said.

Patterson is one of the first Missouri Republicans to acknowledge a need to examine the state’s gun laws in the wake of the shooting. Republicans, including Gov. Mike Parson and House Speaker Dean Plocher, have either avoided the issue or pushed back on the idea of reopening the laws.

Plocher, a St. Louis-area Republican, on Thursday largely refused to answer questions about the state’s gun laws and abruptly ended a news conference after he was asked repeatedly about the shooting.

“We’re not going to dwell on Kansas City today,” he told reporters before cutting off further questions.

Sen. Greg Razer, a Kansas City Democrat who represents the area where the shooting happened, said that it was shameful that it took a mass shooting for Republicans to decide not to pursue the legislation.

“It’s a shame that it took a tragedy, what happened at the Chiefs parade, for them to scrap those three terrible ideas,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll be back next year. You know, the speaker didn’t have time to be wrapped up in Kansas City on Thursday with his press conference.”