KINDER'S COMMENTARY: CONCEAL-CARRY LAW LOOKS GOOD

Recent events on the criminal justice scene right here in Cape Girardeau County are helping make the case for passage of a concealed-weapon law in Missouri. Consider: The young punks and scum who prey upon vulnerable elderly ladies in supermarket parking lots are, of late, getting bolder and bolder. Not content to limit their marauding to the more hospitable evening hours, some have begun attacking older ladies right out there in broad daylight and, in some cases, just a block down the street from the police station.

Then there's the case of the estimable Russell Bucklew. Fine citizen, he. Bucklew, who is charged with murder, kidnapping and rape, fled to St. Louis last March and was later captured after a shootout with state troopers. Jailed while awaiting trial, the 90-pound Bucklew got himself stuffed into a garbage bag and taken out to the Dumpster. (Somehow fitting, don't you think?) From there, it was an easy escape for the alleged murderer. On the lam for less than 48 hours, Bucklew was captured Wednesday afternoon, but only after he is alleged to have stolen a vehicle and broken into a home before viciously taking a claw hammer to two peaceful, law-abiding citizens.

Today, the vermin who prey upon old ladies, and the Russell Bucklews of the world, have a certified government guarantee that their victims will be unarmed. Those of us fighting to pass a conceal-carry law want to repeal that guarantee of disarmament and replace it with: a) the natural, God-given right of self-defense, and b) some measure of resulting doubt in the minds of criminals as to whether their intended victims will be armed.

Citizens applying for the license to carry a concealed weapon would have to prove to law enforcement authorities that they aren't convicted felons, that they are at least 21 years old, that they aren't drug or alcohol abusers and that they have completed a 16-hour firearm safety course, among other requirements. The sheriff or other issuing authority would conduct background checks and decide whether to issue the permit. As is customary with drivers' licenses, these permits would be valid for three years. In states that have gone to conceal-carry, statistics show that approximately 4 percent of the population will apply for and receive the permits.

Citizens of 29 states now have the very right to apply to the sheriff for a permit to carry a concealed weapon that Missourians are denied. These states include hugely populous states such as Florida and Texas, as well as more recent additions Kentucky, Tennessee and South Carolina.

FBI statistics from Florida report that in the nine years since that state adopted a conceal-carry law, homicides are down 29 percent. The highly publicized murders of foreign tourists in the Sunshine State provide an interesting study. Anecdotal testimony from criminals points to the fact that they selected foreign tourists driving rental cars because they knew these victims would be unarmed.

Recent years have demonstrated that large, bipartisan majorities of the Missouri General Assembly favor extending to Missourians this right. We've won as many as 23 votes in the 34-member Senate, while in the House it has won a lopsided margin of something like 119-39. In my four years in Jefferson City, though, we've never passed the bill sufficiently early to get final approval by both houses and put it on the governor's desk. And of course, were it ever to land there, this governor would veto the measure. Which is one good reason among so many others for voters to veto him this fall.

The Russell Bucklews will be with us always. My Democratic colleague, Harold Caskey of Butler, is right when he says, "An armed society is a polite society." The Bucklews need some lessons in politeness. We need more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens trained, certified and authorized to carry them, and more doubt in the minds of criminals about who just might be carrying, and who isn't.

~Peter Kinder is the associate publisher of the Southeast Missourian and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.