Two questions about KC mayor’s gun laws: will they be overturned, and will they matter?

Mayor Quinton Lucas did the same thing at the beginning of his second term that he did when he took office four years ago: He introduced two proposed ordinances aimed at curbing the gun violence that is epidemic in Kansas City.

One of the proposals he introduced Thursday would make it illegal in the city to provide a minor with bullets without the consent of a parent or guardian.

The other would make it illegal to possess a gun modified by a Glock switch, bump stock or any other component that would turn that firearm into a machine gun capable of firing multiple rounds with a single pull on the trigger.

In announcing his intentions earlier this week to enact those new local restrictions, Lucas said the ordinances were written in such a way that the state couldn’t strike them down. Missouri, which has some of the more lenient gun laws in the nation, preempts local governments from enacting gun laws that are more restrictive than the state’s.

The new restrictions are necessary, he said, to address a dramatic increase in homicides, now on track to surpass the record 182 set in 2020.

“That’s why my first action of the new term,” Lucas said in those prepared remarks, “will be legislation, drafted to avoid Missouri’s preemption laws, that will outlaw the distribution of ammunition to minors without parental consent; to outlaw the possession and sale of components, like Glock switches, that turn handguns into fully automatic weapons spraying clubs, our parks, and our streets with hundreds of rounds of bullets and increasingly outgunning our police officers responding to emergencies.”

While he also bemoans gun violence, the head of an area gun rights organization on Thursday characterized Lucas’ proposed ordinances and rhetoric as political posturing.

Kevin Jamison, an attorney who is president of the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance, said both the sales of ammunition to minors and devices that turn weapons into machine guns are already prohibited by federal law.

“It’s pretending that there is no regulation of automatic devices and selling to minors, and it’s already against the law,” Jamison said in an phone interview. “He’s not accomplishing anything with these things… But it’s something to to make it look like he’s doing something.”

Lucas and his aides say he is relying on Missouri state gun laws as the legal foundation for his proposed new local restrictions, which he said were written in a way that the state can’t overturn them.

“On the bullet ban: Missouri law prohibits transferring firearms to minors. Our ordinance clarifies that the definition of ‘firearms’ includes bullets and cartridges,” Lucas press secretary Jazzlyn Johnson said in an email.

“On the machine gun ban: Missouri law prohibits possessing a machine gun. Our ordinance clarifies that the definition of ‘machine guns’ includes modified pistols that shoot multiple rounds with one pull of the trigger.”

Bump stocks and switches

The proposed ordinance builds up a state law that prohibits “the possession, manufacture, transport, repairs, and sale of any machine gun in violation of federal law.”

The next paragraph expands upon that by noting that, in federal law, machine guns “include ‘switches/Glock switches,’ ‘auto-sears,’ ‘bump stocks,’ and any other parts or combination of parts designed to convert a weapon into one capable of firing more than one shot by a single function of the trigger.”

Missouri did not join the nationwide movement to outlaw bump stocks after the device was deployed in 2017 by the shooter who killed 60 people and wounded 867 others at a country music concert in Las Vegas.

But the ban became federal policy at the urging of then-President Donald Trump, when the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives announced that bump stocks met the definition of machine guns and were, therefore, illegal.

In January of this year, a federal appeals court in New Orleans disagreed with the government’s definition and said bump stocks were not machine guns. That teed up the issue for the U.S. Supreme Court to possibly make a final decision.

But the justices won’t decide until late September at the earliest whether to hear the case, Garland v. Cargill, during the court’s upcoming term that begins the first Monday in October.

If the court were to uphold the appeals court ruling, which only applies to states in the Fifth Circuit, might that make a Kansas City ban unenforceable?

“We think Missouri DOES ban bump stocks and switches,” according to written responses to The Star’s questions from Johnson and Morgan Said, Lucas’ chief of staff. “Even if some court rules that bump stocks cannot be considered machine guns, our ordinance will still apply to switches, the more common and more dangerous modification (switches are cheaper, easier to hide, harder to detect, more common, more deadly).”

Jamison said he doubts the high court would remove the ban on the sale and possession of bump stocks and other devices that turn firearms into machine guns.

“I don’t think they’re going to be inclined to make a big step like that,” he said.

Both proposed ordinances were assigned for review to a committee of council members, who will discuss them and receive public comment before deciding whether to advance them to the full council for final consideration.

That process can take a couple of weeks or longer, but Said said the mayor’s office hopes it will come up for final passage next Thursday.

Lucas began his first term in 2019 by passing two ordinances aimed at keeping minors from getting handguns. One made it a local crime for a minor to possess a handgun. The other mirrored a state law prohibiting the transfer of a firearm to a minor without consent of a parent or guardian.

Both are still on the books.