Senate passes concealed-guns bill

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Supporters of a bill that would allow Missourians to carry concealed guns forced the measure to Senate passage Friday by employing a rarely used procedure.

After more than 11 hours of debate over two days, proponents voted to abruptly end debate, then passed the bill over objections from those who had been trying to block it.

The Senate's 23-7 vote returns the measure to the House, which passed a somewhat different version in March on a 108-33 vote.

Just hours before the Senate voted Friday, Democratic Gov. Bob Holden said he would veto the measure if it reached his desk.

Under the Senate bill, Missourians age 23 and older could apply to their county sheriffs for a permit to carry concealed guns. Applicants would have to meet several qualifications, and concealed weapons would be banned from churches, day care centers and certain other locales.

The final vote was taken after Sen. Harold Caskey moved the "previous question" -- which halts debate and forces a vote on the bill. The motion to end debate passed on a 20-11 vote.

Five times in 33 years

While the procedure is more commonly used in the House, the Senate has employed it during just five other debates in the past 33 years. The Senate last used it in 1999 to dispense with an amendment on a bill banning certain late-term abortions so that debate could continue on the legislation itself.

Caskey, who handled the concealed guns bill, said his motion to end debate was a tough decision to make. He has served since 1977 in the Senate, where the tradition of "free and fair debate" is so esteemed that the slogan is etched into the chamber's wall.

"This is an issue that has been here so long and we just needed to get it behind us," Caskey, D-Butler, said later Friday. "There was no alternative to get the issue to a vote."

Missouri voters narrowly rejected a concealed guns proposal in April 1999, with urban residents generally opposing the measure and those in rural areas generally supporting it.

This year's legislation would not go to the ballot, but rather to the governor's desk.

"I have a philosophical problem with conceal and carry," Holden said Friday. "And the people of the state spoke on it. If they want the people to speak again, then go back to a vote of the people."

As passed by the House, the legislation set 21 as the minimum age for obtaining a concealed gun permit. Caskey raised it to 23 -- a compromise, he said, with opponents who wanted to make 25 the minimum age.

Applicants for concealed gun permits would have to take an eight-hour gun safety course and pass background a check. They would cost $100 and be valid for three years.

Seven Senate Democrats had tried to prevent the bill from coming to a vote. Among them was Minority Floor Leader Ken Jacob, who said he was "disappointed" that debate had been shut off.

"I would never use that procedure personally," said Jacob, D-Columbia. "People in this state rejected concealed weapons, and I have fought this issue for 20 years. I think the world will be a more dangerous place with people carrying concealed guns."

Jacob voted for the bill. But he said that was a procedural move that could allow him to seek reconsideration of the measure's passage.

The debate capped a week in which the Senate had devoted nearly 10 straight hours to an abortion-bill debate, echoes of which found their way into an exchange Friday between Caskey and Sen. Joan Bray, D-St. Louis.

"I agree with the senator ... that men should not discuss abortion if she would agree with me that women should not discuss guns," Caskey quipped.

"I might agree to that if the senator was as good at having babies as I am at shooting," Bray replied.

Rep. Larry Crawford, the House sponsor of the bill, was on hand for the Senate vote and predicted that a Holden veto would be defeated. The original version had cleared the House in March with just one vote less than the 109 needed to override a veto, but 22 members did not vote on it.

"I feel there's going to be a huge amount of pressure on the governor not to veto this legislation because of the popularity of this issue," said Crawford, R-California. "I certainly think we will have enough votes for an override."

Thirty-five other states already have similar concealed gun laws, said Kelly Whitley, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association in Washington, D.C.

"Right to carry has proven to make people safer in those states that have given them that right," Whitley said.

Concealed guns bill is HB349.