The gun control lobby has a new ally in their quest to undo Missouri's firearms preemption law: the Kansas City affiliate of NPR. On Thursday, KCUR ran a piece by its Missouri politics and government reporter Celisa Caracal attacking preemption laws in general, painting them as an effort by Republicans to tie the hands of Democratic politicians so they can score political points on issues like crime and public safety. 

It's truly a bizarre story, even by NPR standards. 

In the leadup to Missouri’s August primary, Republican candidates for state office have frequently taken shots at the state’s largest cities.

“There's a reason that the same access to firearms in suburban areas and rural areas doesn't see the same kind of result of violent crime,” state senator and gubernatorial candidate Bill Eigel said in a July televised debate. “We have leaders in St. Louis city, in Kansas City, that don't want to put bad guys in jail.”

This kind of rhetoric has become standard Republican fare in Missouri, as office-seekers paint the state’s cities as hotbeds for crime and lawlessness and tout their law and order policies as the only way to prevent violent crime from spreading. It’s no coincidence that Republicans feel compelled to take shots at cities that are more progressive and diverse than the rest of the state.

It can't be that Republicans are taking shots at Democrat politicians in St. Louis and Kansas City because their policies are terrible ideas. Oh no, it must be because the GOP hates diversity. 

It’s a tactic also common in national politics. Former President Donald Trump and his Republican challengers frequently attacked Chicago and other major cities as crime-ridden places where violence proliferates. Fearmongering about crime in more diverse, more liberal urban areas have become a talking point for the GOP despite national data showing violent crime is down. 

Is it fearmongering when Democrats talk about violent crime in cities like St. Louis or Chicago? Of course not. Only Republicans can do that, apparently. But here's the thing; if violent crime really is falling in these "more diverse, more liberal urban areas" that are subjected to statewide firearm preemption laws, doesn't that demonstrate that preemption isn't the problem Democrats claim it to be? 

St. Louis, Kansas City and other cities are easy political scapegoats for Missouri candidates like Eigel in large part because they are reliably Democratic enclaves in an otherwise deeply red state. Republicans running for a statewide position know they can win without city voters.

Once in office, Republicans codify their distaste for cities into law by restricting what cities can and cannot do. They’ve largely succeeded at this by passing laws that block the very cities they call lawless from enacting the policies to address problems.

City lawmakers can’t raise the minimum wage. They can’t require people to pass a background check before buying a firearm. They can’t pass a moratorium on evictions. Kansas City can’t control its own police department, or how much the city will fund it. 

Oh lord, now Republicans hate cities, according to Caracal. Keep in mind, by the way, that this ostensibly a straight news piece, not an opinion piece or editorial. And it gets worse. Much worse. 

Calls to pass local gun control measures grew louder following the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs victory rally at Union Station that killed beloved radio DJ Lisa Lopez-Galvan and injured at least 24 others.

But Missouri law prevents any county, city or municipality from passing legislation regulating the sale, purchase, transfer, ownership, use, possession, transportation, licensing, permit and registration of firearms.

At a recent Jackson County legislature meeting, legislator Jalen Anderson criticized that policy.

“These preemption laws were put in place to make sure that our lives are made to be political, that our safety is political, that they have something to run on every two years,” Anderson told a room full of gun safety advocates and young people who testified about the importance of gun control.

I would have thought that Caracal would allow for a rebuttal from a Republican lawmaker at some point in her story, but that was not the case. The only Republicans quoted in her story were Eigel's comment during a public debate and a quote from Missouri Governor Mike Parson blaming the Kansas City shooting on "a bunch of criminals, thugs"; a comment that Caracal describes as "coded racist language". Caracal did, however, manage to speak to Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lewis, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II, both Democrats. 

Despite the claims by the Jackson County legislator, firearm preemption laws aren't about politicizing public safety or giving Republicans something to run on. They're meant to prevent a patchwork quilt of local gun control ordinances that could easily ensnare lawful gun owners (of all races, colors, and creeds, I might add) as they travel through cities and suburbs. Having one statewide standard for gun laws makes sense, which is why more than 40 states have them in place. 

There's no question that these laws prevent localities from establishing their own gun control regimes, but it's also a fact that when localities try to implement their own ordinances, they often end up treading all over our right to keep and bear arms. In Jackson County, for instance, legislator Manny Abarca has been trying to drum up support for a local ordinance prohibiting adults under the age of 21 from possessing firearms. Oddly, Caracal didn't even mention Abarca's current campaign, even though he's explicitly stated that the measure would be a vehicle to challenge Missouri's preemption law.

Caracal also failed to mention that even if firearms preemption disappeared, cities would still be limited to creating new misdemeanor crimes, which are likely to be punished by fines, community service, and probation, if they're even prosecuted at all. 

The truth is that Kansas City doesn't need more ticky-tack offenses on the books. It needs to use the laws already in place to prosecute violent offenders to the fullest extent of the law. Neither Missouri's firearm preemption law nor Republican lawmakers are stopping Jackson County prosecutors and politicians from pursuing that strategy, but that would require action on their part. Scapegoating GOP legislators is much easier, especially when you've got allies in the media who are happy to help point the finger at conservatives for the woes of Democrat-run cities.