CONCEALED WEAPONS

With a scant five weeks remaining in this year's legislative session of the Missouri General Assembly, time grows short for the hundreds of bills that were introduced in January. For at least the third year in a row, an effort to extend to Missourians the right to apply to law enforcement officials to carry a concealed weapon is apparently dying on the third floor of the Capitol. This is a right enjoyed by citizens of at least 28 other states and, in more restrictive form, by citizens in another 14 states.

Missouri, therefore, is among only eight states that have a total ban on carrying a concealed weapon. In the last two years alone, as Missouri lawmakers have dithered, their counterparts in Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas and Kentucky have passed this law and watched as governors of both parties signed the bills.

But not in Missouri. On various occasions, the bill has passed both the House and Senate with large majorities, and this despite Gov. Mel Carnahan's adamant opposition and threatened veto. In neither house has passage ever occurred sufficiently early in the session to get the bill to the other chamber and get differences between the two versions ironed out for the final passage that would send it on to the governor. Thus it has never reached the chief executive's desk. After years of this charade the act wears thin, and Missourians are entitled to conclude that key actors in the House and Senate are protecting this governor from making the tough decisions for which the taxpayers pay him $85,000 a year.

The effort to include a referendum clause in the bill is another aspect of the charade. No other state has included such a provision in its legislative enactment. Such a clause would send the measure to a public vote without the governor's signature, bypassing him entirely. Thus it is a neat dodge for politicians looking for one. Further, it would divert to resources of pro-Second Amendment citizens to a multimillion-dollar campaign supporting the measure and away from backing their favorite lawmakers who at risk in competitive elections. These citizens don't relish the prospect of having to spend scarce private monies to defend against the sort of outrageous, government-funded campaign against the measure that this governor unleashed against Hancock II a couple of years ago.

The fun and games on concealed weapons should end with passage of the measure. It appears, however, that as with meaningful tax cuts, or reform in workers compensation, it will take another election before Missourians have those in office who will move beyond lip service and actually deliver.