KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As we approach an election year, Missouri state lawmakers are preparing to head back to work as the legislative session begins in January.
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Missouri Rep. Patty Lewis anticipates not a lot of work getting done during the upcoming session.
"Last year, we passed the least amount of bills ever following the COVID year when we were shut down for several weeks," Lewis said. "So we're already not very productive anyway, and you put this chaos and everybody running against each other, so it’s going to be interesting."
One of her 20 bill priorities includes Donna’s Law, something she’s been talking about for weeks.
"It’s a voluntary sign up list to not be sold firearms," Lewis said.
The idea behind Donna’s law — someone voluntarily puts their name on a list, and they wouldn’t be able to purchase a gun.
The law aims to prevent an impulsive decision to harm yourself later; people may remove themselves from this list after a waiting period, too.
"If an individual has a history of suicidal ideations and they say, 'Hey, I don’t want to own a gun,' they voluntarily sign up for this list," she said. "So if they are in a moment of crisis, they won’t be able to purchase one."
To date, Utah, Washington and Virginia enacted Donna’s Law.
It’s also been introduced in Kansas, too.
Allen Rostron, a UMKC constitutional law professor, says it’s not a list of people who owns a firearm, but those who don’t want to own guns.
"Everything with guns is very controversial, but I think this is the least controversial provision you would think, because it's voluntary," Rostron said. "Even if someone felt very strongly about gun rights and they being protected, we generally let people waive their rights if they choose to do so."
Rostron said Donna's Law is bill he could see bipartisan support for.
"There aren’t many things where there’s a middle ground or a bipartisanship between people who prefer gun rights and gun control measures, but this is one where I could see support from both sides," Rostron said. "There are other ways to get firearms and other ways to harm yourself, unfortunately. It’s not foolproof at all, but it strikes me as one of those measures where it may not dramatically reduce the number of suicides with firearms or overall, but it’s not an extremely expensive or cumbersome process to implement and doesn’t have real drawbacks of infringing on people’s rights; if they don’t want to participate, that’s fine."
Lewis provided some statistics she believes support the importance of the bill.
“Fifty-three percent of gun deaths in the state of Missouri are suicide, so this is something we can prevent," Lewis said.
Dave and Carole Webster support the bill and have been involved in helping promote gun safety.
“Carole found Grandparents For Gun Safety," Dave Webster said.
They talked about some of the work the pair have done with the organization.
"It’s a passion," Dave Webster said. “In the past five years, we’ve given out over 6,000 high-quality gun locks.”
Carole Webster says Donna Law could help Kansas Citians.
“If there had been something like this available to him, his son, who later committed suicide, [he] would have signed up for the list," she said.
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