Mayor Sky Thinks Old West Had Tougher Gun Control Laws Than Missouri July 31, 2014

Kansas City, Missouri Mayor Sly James said the Old Wild West would have tighter gun control laws than Missouri, if the state permits openly carrying of firearms.

James said that as he and the Kansas City Council voted to ban openly carrying guns within the city limits.

“You used to have to drop your guns off at the sheriff’s office when you got to town,” James said.

Kevin Jamsion of the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance said the Mayor has his history of the Old West wrong.

“If you read the ‘Oxford History of the American West’, you’ll see those laws were selectively enforced,’ said Jamison.

He added, “Doc Holliday had a concealed weapons permit in Tombstone because he was a friend of the marshal’s.

James says citizens openly carrying guns in Kansas City might make the work of police officers more difficult. They would have to determine if someone with a weapon on display had criminal intentions.

Jamison asked the Mayor to cite any example in Kansas City’s history of an advocate of openly carrying a weapon of doing something unsafe.

James also used the small town of lake Ozark, Missouri as an example of an outstate Missouri community that thought open carry was not fitted for that town either.

The city changed another portion of it gun law.

It re-worked laws to comply with the Missouri laws that permit an intoxicated person to have a firearm. Earlier this year, the Council refused to change its local ordinances on the matter even though the Council was told it had no choice.

The latest Kansas City Council move could place the city on the opposite side of the state’s gun laws again.

Missouri legislators may try to override Governor Jay Nixon’s veto of the open carry law lawmakers passed this session. The veto session takes place in September.

Another member of the Kansas City Council also used the comparison to the Old West.

Councilman Scott Taylor told the council of what one citizen said to him.

“That person said, I love to live in the Midwest. I just don’t want to live in the Old West. And that’s what this would be like, with people walking around with guns,” Taylor said.