Second in an occasional series on teen gun violence in Springfield.
IN-DEPTH
Jasmine Allen will go through the motions to celebrate her brother Calvin Allen Jr.’s birthday on May 19 — the fifth year she will face it without him. Calvin, a former Parkview High School standout basketball player, was stabbed and fatally shot in Springfield in 2019 by a 19-year-old now serving a life sentence without parole.
When Jasmine considers Missouri’s reported seventh-highest rate of gun deaths in the U.S., she thinks of it less in terms of “lives lost” and more about “years lost” — the many years her 29-year-old brother had ahead of him; the years she will have without him; the years his two children will have without their father.
That’s the “survivor’s story” the Springfield special ed teacher carried with her to a March 27 advocacy day in Jefferson City on behalf of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense.
Jasmine joined about 150 Springfield and Missouri women, men and students who year-round promote stronger laws to reduce gun violence against teens and adults. There are 51 chapters across the country; 700 student chapters.
Wearing their signature red Moms Demand Action T-shirts, they filed into the building together, and then flowed like a river of crimson through the Capitol corridors. Respectful, armed with research and statistics, they met in small teams with lawmakers, asking for their support of pending bills:
- Allow cities and counties to determine their own gun policies
- Don’t arm more school personnel with guns
- Temporarily remove a firearm from an individual showing signs of being a threat to themselves or others.
The Moms’ show of force at the Capitol is an annual event. But this one may have carried more weight with lawmakers in the midst of a session overshadowed by the Feb. 14 mass shooting during the celebration of the Kansas City Super Bowl victory. Two adults and two juveniles have been charged with murder in the death of one woman; 22 others, including children, were injured. Several Missouri legislators were among the thousands who witnessed the shootings.
The tragedy stoked deep and longstanding disagreements among Missouri lawmakers about how to solve gun violence in their communities. Most Republican bills focus on policies to protect or expand the rights of gun owners, and uphold their Second Amendment rights. Democrat-sponsored bills call for restrictions on who can conceal-carry a handgun, and promote measures to keep firearms out of public places and out of the hands of minors.
In Springfield, where a local pastor has conducted multiple funerals in the last year for teen victims of gun violence, the Kansas City tragedy was a stark reminder: This is our problem, too.
Related story
Alarm over youth gun violence in Springfield spurs task force and a look at root causes
Gun violence among teens in Springfield is on everyone’s radar. A new task force has begun work, while “credible messengers” are going to the streets, earning the trust of at-risk teens — on their turf and on their terms.
Springfield Council will hear proposal for pilot projects not aimed at gun restrictions
With seven weeks remaining in the legislative session and so far little sign of compromise on state gun laws, city leaders say it’s a problem that calls for more creative solutions.
Francine Pratt co-chairs the Gun Safety and Violence Collaborative with some 30 Springfield community leaders and volunteers. At the Springfield City Council study season on Tuesday, April 2, Pratt will ask members to consider funding several pilot programs aimed at increasing gun safety and reducing youth gun violence. Any vote on the request would come later.
Pastor Roger Franklin of the Heart Church hosted a teen listening session for a group of Springfield Public School students on March 29 at the Dream Center — “In life you don’t lose. The only way you lose is if you give up.” Police are targeting criminals with guns as part of a focus on reducing gun violence. “Credible messengers” are going to the streets, earning the trust of at-risk teens. Moms Demand Action partners with the Grant Beach Neighborhood Association on regular cleanups to help inoculate its streets from criminal activity.
The Gun Safety and Violence Collaborative won’t be advocating for gun restrictions, Pratt says. The issue is too politically charged; she doesn’t want politics to stymie any projects the whole community can get behind.
Moms Demand Action, however, goes where others will not.
Heading to the Capitol: not against guns, against gun violence
Jean Knapp, a Springfield member of Moms Demand Action, attended her seventh advocacy day on March 27.
“I grew up with guns on the farm,” Knapp says. “Guns were a tool,” part of farm work, hunting and target shooting. “Moms Demand Action does not hate guns, we hate gun violence.
“It has been shown by evidence that states with stronger gun laws also have less gun violence, so strong gun laws save lives.”
Moms Demand Action sets a legislative agenda each year based on research by its national parent organization Everytown for Gun Safety. The watchdog group monitors and ranks every state’s policies against its list of 50 “best practices” shown to help reduce gun violence.
According to Everytown, Missouri is “a national failure.”
Learn more
Moms Demand Action and its national parent organization Everytown for Gun Safety advocate for stronger laws and policies aimed at reducing gun violence across U.S. communities and creating a culture of gun safety.
- To learn about upcoming events in Springfield and other Missouri cities, visit momsdemandaction.org/events. The Springfield chapter meets at 6:30 p.m.-8 p.m. on the fourth Thursday of the month. Locations vary, consult events page.
- Email the local chapter at sgfmomsdemandaction@gmail.com
The state is known to have some of the loosest gun laws in the country. Everytown ranks it No. 38 of 50 in the U.S. for gun law strength. Among other things, Missouri doesn’t require permits to buy or carry firearms, and doesn’t require firearms to be registered or for gun owners to be licensed. Those measures were repealed with passage of Missouri Senate Bill 656, and approved over the veto of Democrat Gov. Jay Nixon in 2017.
Everytown’s website also notes that Missouri doesn’t require that firearms be stored, locked, unloaded and kept separate from ammunition. It doesn’t require new handgun models sold in the state to have childproofing features.
Missouri does, however, prohibit the public from carrying guns on state capitol grounds.
Republican Rep. Adam Schnelting of St. Charles is among GOP lawmakers who defend several proposed gun-rights bills such as one allowing conceal-carry firearms on public transit, saying the right to carry is a constitutional right in Missouri and allows for self-defense.
A young advocate speaks
On lobby day, lawmakers heard from a young voice in 10-year-old Amelia Sutton, who traveled to Jefferson City with her mother Amy Sutton and copies of letters Amelia and sister Julianna wrote for the lawmakers.
Amelia read her letter to each lawmaker she met:
“One of my greatest fears is intruders, and it would make me feel a lot safer if I knew that it would be hard for said intruder to get their hands on a gun, especially because 43% of the death in the U.S. is caused by a gun. As a child I’m very concerned about gun violence, so I was wondering what your concerns are on this topic. Also what do you think you could do to make Missouri safer, while still giving the citizens the right to bare (sic) arms?”
She gave each legislator a copy, which included her Springfield address “if you want to write me.”
The Moms’ messages focused on several bills out of the more than 80 measures relating to firearms that were filed since January.
They support House Joint Resolution 135, or HJR 135, that Springfield’s Democratic Minority House Leader Crystal Quade filed in the wake of the Kansas City mass shooting. It calls for a constitutional amendment allowing counties and municipalities to establish their own gun policies.
Missouri cities and counties are preempted from adopting their own gun restrictions, even if they would be better suited to a municipality’s unique issues, Quade says. She filed HJR 135, reasoning, “If the legislature doesn’t want to change the gun laws, let’s allow our local municipalities and cities to be able to determine what works for them.” About 40 fellow legislators filed identical bills in support.
“I think it’s an important piece of this discussion that we talk about ‘Maybe not all laws are necessary in all areas of our state,’” Quade told the Hauxeda that day, but she added that policies around safe storage of firearms and Red Flag Laws to remove a firearm from an individual in distress would be helpful everywhere.
“I think it’s really important particularly in discussions around teens and what’s going on with the City of Springfield that something like that is allowed.”
Law enforcement tells her Missouri’s laws don’t allow them to do their jobs, Quade said.
“Particular to Springfield, we hear a lot about juveniles having guns that their parents own legally and that their kids are taking and then doing things with. The law enforcement officer may pull over a kid who's got the gun and waving it around, even shooting it, and the law enforcement officer has to give the gun back to the parents. So they truly can’t do anything about what’s going on.”
In the wake of the Kansas City shootings, Republicans who staunchly support Second Amendment rights doubled down on their resistance to gun restrictions, saying that laws don’t prevent tragedies because criminals don’t obey the laws. Neosho Republican Sen. Ben Baker was quoted while on the House floor saying that the calls for stricter gun policy were “a knee-jerk reaction” and “there needs to be more in-depth thought before legislation is proposed surrounding gun policy.”
Moms volunteer Jean Knapp didn’t visit Baker on lobbying day, but responds, “If we had said that about drunk driving or seat belt wearing, then we would still have many people dying needlessly in car wrecks from drunk driving and wearing seat belts. … If we had said that about every type of lifesaving measure,” she adds, “there would be so many deaths that it would be incomprehensible.”
Still, she adds, “I like hearing that they want to study it further, and I think our group and Everytown and other gun violence initiatives would be glad to help with that. Because we need them to join us in order to really put a dent in gun violence in our state. It’s not going to happen until they agree to work on it in ways that have been found to work. I think it’s always the right time to save lives.”
Quade says she knows HJR 135 allowing municipalities to determine their own gun policies isn’t going anywhere.
“Quite honestly, that’s because the Republican leadership does not want to have any conversations about gun violence,” Quade says. “We have, as a caucus, attempted to bring the discussion up on the floor. Many times when we’ve been having conversations around teen suicide, or protection of children — various places where we know it’s relatable — we have attempted to bring the discussion to the floor, always getting gaveled down by the speaker and not allowed to have any discussion around gun violence.”
Should minors have guns?
Sen. Steven Roberts, a St. Louis-area Democrat, earns the support of Moms Demand Action and Springfield law enforcement officers for SB 790, making it unlawful for a minor (17 and under) to possess a handgun or ammunition for a handgun, with some exceptions. At last year’s session a bipartisan bill calling for the same restriction was ultimately stripped from another measure going to a vote, Roberts says.
Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams says that kind of restriction would help keep more guns out of the hands of teens and reduce teen gun violence. It would also make Missouri consistent with federal law.
“We stop a 16-year-old who’s not involved in anything — it’s a traveling violation or we’re interviewing them for something, and they have a handgun. We have to give it back to them, which boggles my mind,” Chief Williams says.
Police stats released this year also show that of 133 shooting investigations in 2023 in Springfield, 21 of the suspects were age 18 and under; 66 of them were age 24 and under.
That issue, and the jump in the number of citizens walking around with handguns tucked in their waistbands and stowed in their vehicles is “a collateral effect” of Missouri’s conceal-carry law, Williams says. An individual no longer needs a permit to conceal carry or open carry a firearm, with few exceptions, as a result of the 2017 repeal.
Springfield crime stats bear that out. “Shots fired” calls for service jumped from 183 in 2016 before the law passed to 356 in 2022. The number of people being shot went from 55 in 2019 (the first year tracked) to 73 in 2022. In 2023, “shots fired” calls for service fell to 319, with 58 people injured, a result Williams wants to think reflects his department’s focused efforts.
Playing defense against expanded gun rights
On advocacy day, much of what Moms Demand Action did was play defense, explaining their opposition to bills they say would further expand gun rights, such as HB 1708. It would lower from 19 to 18 the age at which a person could apply for a concealed/carry permit, and possess a firearm on public property if accompanied by someone age 21 or older or is participating in a sporting or hunting activity.
That’s part of Rep. Schnelting’s bill that also would allow individuals with conceal-carry permits to lawfully carry firearms in churches and other places of worship as well as on public transportation. The measure has drawn recorded opposition from entities such as Springfield City Utilities, which operates the city bus system.
Dozens of people identifying as defenders of the Second Amendment have provided written favorable testimony including Missourian Duane Muckenthaler who wrote, “Law abiding citizens should be able to carry their firearms any place a criminal would carry. Since criminals do not obey the law, fire arm (sic) free zones are criminal shooting galleries.”
Springfield’s Jean Knapp counters, “It’s a big responsibility to own and use a firearm. And a responsible gun owner has to make decisions that I think are more appropriate for an individual older than 18. I feel that way, having brought up a teenager.” At 18 and 19, “They’re still teenagers.”
The Moms also spoke against the “Anti-Red Flag Gun Seizure Act,” which failed to pass last year and resurfaced this session as SB 998 by Republican Sen. Danny Hoskins.
A Red Flag Law, which doesn’t exist in Missouri, prevents individuals who show signs of being a threat to themselves or others from buying or possessing any kind of firearm. Also known as an Extreme Risk Protection Order law, it provides safeguards for due process before any firearm is removed.
Moms Demand Action say it’s a tool that law enforcement or families can use to prevent suicide, domestic violence and mass shootings.
“We lost a neighbor in my community over a week ago,” said Moms volunteer and Ballwin resident Dolores Peterson. “She had an order of protection against this guy and he shot and killed her.”
Rep. Hoskins’ Anti-Red Flag Gun Seizure Act provides that any federal order of protection or other judicial order issued by a court to confiscate any firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition from any law-abiding citizen shall be considered a violation of the person’s right to keep and bear arms guaranteed in the Second Amendment.
Expanding access to guns by school employees
Moms Demand Action also opposes HB 1440 that would allow school districts to add other school personnel to the list of employees who have a conceal-carry permit to lawfully bring a firearm onto school property. Currently, school districts may designate teachers or administrators to be school protection officers.
Missourian Amy Hess was among those submitting written testimony to a House committee, supporting it as “a means to broaden the pool for the School Protection Officer (SPO) program. Enlarging the cadre of trained personnel within educational institutions offers enhanced and expedited protection for our children.”
St. Louis area Moms advocate Mary Gross counters, “We think passing sensible gun legislation would do a lot more to keep schools safe than to have more guns in schools. Because more guns equals more gun deaths.”
In Springfield, plans for creative solutions, not laws
If, as it appears with a divided Missouri legislature, compromises aren’t likely to address gun violence, what’s next for communities?
Springfield leaders who are grappling with the problem say it may come down to “creative solutions” that are already being tested.
Missourians are not held liable for failing to secure firearms near a child or in his home, and a Senate bill calling for that isn’t making headway yet. But Springfield’s Moms Demand Action and Community Partnership of the Ozarks educate groups about gun safety education and provide free gun lock kits for gun owners.
Pratt, with the Gun Safety and Violence Collaborative, plans to apply for a three-year research, planning and pilot project grant from the Missouri Foundation for Health. The funding she’ll request from City Council on April 2 to address youth gun violence in particular would put some early pilot projects in motion.
Neighborhoods are a bigger focus. Springfield Police Sgt. Michael Ramsey says the department has removed some of the barriers to the Neighborhood Watch program so that more people — not a select group — can undergo Neighborhood Watch training.
Moms Demand Action partners on annual, major cleanups and other projects with the Grant Beach Neighborhood Association, and Jean Knapp would like to do more. Police stats show the area has the second-highest incidence of crime in the city, and evidence shows that organized cleanups help fight crime, Knapp says.
According to the CDC, communities that engage in activities using Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, such as neighborhood cleanups, reported decreases in gun violence, youth homicide, disorderly conduct, and violent crime.
“Moms Demand Action is just one part of our community,” Knapp says. “Any effort to decrease gun violence needs to be community-wide, involving community leaders, faith leaders, business leaders, academic leaders, mental health leaders. Because it takes all of us working together to really make an impact on gun violence.”
Any effort to decrease gun violence needs to be community-wide, involving community leaders, faith leaders, business leaders, academic leaders, mental health leaders. Because it takes all of us working together to really make an impact on gun violence.
Jean knapp, Moms Demand Action, Springfield
Springfield Mayor Ken McClure is a believer in creative solutions because he was part of two that exist today. Out of discussions in 2019 and 2020 with mayors of the large Missouri cities, Burrell Behavioral Health opened the Rapid Access Treatment Center where a police officer can quickly take an individual in crisis, or a person can self-refer. It became the model for the rest of the state. Another project allows police officers investigating the scene of a crime to offer witnesses protection on the spot instead of undergoing a delay.
He’s encouraged by law enforcement’s focus on gun violence this year, citing a decrease in crime by 17.5% from 2021-2022, and a 9.5% decrease 2022 to 2023. “The gunshots fired are a concern to me… We’ve got to change that.”
He supports the ongoing work of the Gun Safety and Violence Collaborative, he says, but believes there are changes that only legislation can fix: Make state law consistent with federal law in outlawing juveniles (17 and under) from possessing a handgun, and reinstate the conceal-carry requirements that were repealed in 2017.
“Those are common sense,” McClure says. “Neither one violates the Second Amendment, but they put reasoned controls in place to prevent those who should not have guns from having them.”
Simple steps, he says. “It may take a long time, but I’m hopeful.”
