KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Among the guns confiscated after a mass shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl rally Wednesday was one that a gun expert identified as a semi-automatic rifle converted to a short barrel.
The magazine attached to it could easily carry as many as 50 rounds.
“These magazines allow a shooter to continue firing in rapid succession many bullets and they really do increase the number of casualties in these shootings,” said Lindsay Nichols, federal policy director with the Giffords Law Center.
Large capacity magazines, banned by some states, are legal in Missouri.
The mass shooting put a national focus on Missouri gun laws, which the Giffords Law Center, a national gun control group, has given a F rating as the third weakest in the nation.
The only two states with weaker gun laws, she said, are Wyoming and Arkansas.
“Missouri doesn’t require a background check before the sale of a gun. It doesn’t require gun buyers to obtain a permit to purchase the gun, doesn’t ban assault weapons or ghost guns or other kinds of weapons that are known to be unusually dangerous,” Nichols said.
The converted semi-automatic rifle, which Kansas City police haven’t yet identified as the one the shooter used, is so dangerous that in most states it would have been difficult for the average person to even own it.
It’s heavily regulated by federal law and would require the owner to pass a lengthy federal background check.
Here’s the rub: Missouri doesn’t believe it has to follow federal gun laws, according to a state statute that is being challenged in federal court by gun-control advocates.
Allen Rostron, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and an expert on gun policy, said Missouri gun laws also tie the hands of city officials from enacting tougher gun regulations.
“Often people wonder why doesn’t Kansas City pass some kind of more restrictive gun measure,” Rostron said. “They aren’t allowed to. State law preempts local government from really doing anything with guns.”
This year, Missouri lawmakers are pushing for new legislation that will force churches and public buses to allow people inside who are carrying guns.
