Gun Smoke and Mirrors

One fun benefit of working at a smaller newspaper is getting to know your local cops.

You get to ask anything you want, and many of them - being "real people" and never in jerk-mode because, face it, we're talking as peers and not as Enforcement and Suspect - are quite frank.

For example, this is something I found out: there is a caveat of Missouri's new concealed-and-carry weapons law that apparently "bad guys" know about and the rest of us don't. If I were going home for Thanksgiving, I'd ask my hunter-clan uncles in this light deer harvest season whether before the new law they had any trouble carrying weapons in their cars.

Before the change, before you could register to carry a loaded firearm on your person in this state, it was illegal to have a loaded, readily-accessible concealed weapon in your car. I say "loaded," but the correct term would be "capable of lethal force." So, the typical hunting rifle, if not in plain view on that rear-window gun rack, could legally be tucked away with the rest of your deer-getting gear and not be a problem.

Now, it doesn't matter.

If you are 21 years old and don't have any felony convictions, you're cool to carry a concealed weapon on your person while in the car or just to have the weapon sitting there in your car, period. This is meant to apply to legal, registered gun owners who don't want to go through the hassle of getting that additional license.

That means that if you are a "pre-criminal," you are in the clear. You get some concealed-and-carry benefits, too.

The cops may still take your weapon away if you get taken in on warrants during a traffic stop. But you'll get the piece back as your property when you're released. That's as long as the thing doesn't show up as stolen or is proved to have been used in a previous crime.

It also means that you can have a gun, someone like me, for example, legally or just because I happen to be holding it or whatever, in the car in Missouri at any time. No one checks on who it belongs to, just that the you are not an ex-convict who shouldn't be messing with Project CeaseFire.

It means any gun owner can be packing from behind the wheel. Passengers, too. Not just hunters who may have been inconvenienced somehow before the "loophole" part of concealed-carry.

This apparently is the kind of thing you learn when you go to jail.