STORM2K

ST. LOUIS -- Missouri's controversial law allowing more people to legally carry concealed weapons won't take effect on Saturday as scheduled. In St. Louis on Friday afternoon, Circuit Judge Steven Ohmer issued a temporary restraining order that delays the new law until the state's Supreme Court can determine if it's constitutional.

The plaintiffs that sued the state over the law have to pay a $250,000 bond to cover businesses' potential losses from the delay. However, Ohmer said the law would have caused irreparable harm had it taken effect on Saturday.

The plaintiffs are a group of public officials, members of the St. Louis Clergy Coalition and the non-profit Institute for Peace and Justice. Their lawyers, Burton Newman and Richard Miller, cited a provision of the Bill of Rights of the Missouri Constitution. It says the right to bear arms “shall not justify the wearing of concealed weapons.''

The law, which the Legislature passed over Gov. Bob Holden’s veto, would let any person over age 23, after paying a $100 fee and passing a background check and a training course, receive a permit from his or her county sheriff to carry a concealed gun. It also would allows anyone age 21 or older to conceal a legally obtained gun in a vehicle without need of a permit.

Leave it to the lawyers to find a technicality. So does that mean that the police officers are not supposed to be wearing guns? Missouri should have amended that in their constitution years ago. The Supreme Court will over turn that one, because of the simple fact that the law contradicts itself.

Lindaloo,

The Missouri Legislature may be (thank God!) conservative, but the judicial here is all Democratic...thanx to the late, unlamented Mel Carnahan and his successor, the Honorable (?) Bob "Sponge-Bob", or "One-Term Bob" Holden in the Governor's Mansion.

"the Honorable (?) Bob "Sponge-Bob", or "One-Term Bob" Holden at one"


LOL Bill!!