State Gun Laws Are Holding Cities Back, Mayors Say

ST. LOUIS, MO — St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson joined with 10 other mayors from around the country to voice a unified opinion on the challenges of passing new gun control laws at the local level.

In an op-ed published by USA Today, Krewson joined mayors from Tallahassee, Pittsburgh, Portland, Minneapolis, Topeka, Orlando, Ann Arbor, Dayton, Providence, and Kansas City, Missouri to call out the hand-tying laws that prevent them from taking action on gun reform on a state or local level.

When school shootings occur, the mayors wrote, all who live in those communities are deeply affected, regardless of whether they're the parents of school-aged children or the local officials who are expected to enact ordinances and policies that maintain social order in their cities.

"Keeping our people safe is our highest responsibility. If our residents don't feel safe — safe at school, safe in parks, safe at work, safe at home — nothing else matters. As mayors, we're elected to take on big challenges. Infrastructure and public works, water quality and energy efficiency, law enforcement and civil rights, and making our cities competitive in the 21st century economy. Atop that list should be smart, common-sense local firearms laws that keep guns out of the wrong hands, keep guns out of public spaces, and keep the threat of gun violence and mass shootings at bay.

"There's no doubt about the need for thoughtful new gun ordinances," they said. "Mayors across the country are ready to pass them, enhancing public safety in our cities. But we can't — because our states have banned us from enacting local gun laws."

State preemption laws, as they're called, can govern the extent of a municipality's local control, the mayors explained; and some states use preemption laws in ways that do not appear to be in the best interest of the people.

While some preemption laws prevent local cities from lowering their own environmental standards, for example, forcing industrial companies to adhere to broader, statewide environmental regulations, other preemption laws can force cities to adhere to state mandates even when those mandates don't suit the people of a specific area and might otherwise be changed through a local vote or official ordinance.

When Oregon legalized recreational cannabis, for example, state lawmakers gave municipalities the option of continuing to restrict its sale within their city limits.

Gun legislation — well, that's another story.

"Forty-three states have some form of gun preemption, a tactic increasingly used by state legislators to prevent cities and counties from making local laws and decisions," the mayors wrote. "States are interfering in local efforts to raise wages, pass paid sick time and non-discrimination ordinances, and adopt fracking and environmental regulations. Lawmakers are using preemption to overturn elections, perpetuate racial and economic inequality, and silence local voices.

"It's happening in your state," they continued. "And it's happening because lobbyists and special interests know it's easier to influence a few state lawmakers in 50 state capitols than thousands of local mayors and city councils."

Some states — looking at you, Kentucky — even have rather severe penalties for city officials, such as jail time, who try to vote on a local gun ordinance that contradicts a state law, the mayors wrote.

"That's the power of America's gun lobby," they conceded. "In a new national poll released this month by the Local Solutions Support Center, 70 percent of voters said corporate special interests and their lobbyists convince state lawmakers to block local laws to protect their profits. Let us be clear: Our states are choosing the National Rifle Association over your lives and safety. And right now, we're powerless to stop them."

However, hope is not entirely lost, the mayors wrote. By contacting individual state legislators, citizens can rise up and demand a change to state laws that either allow municipalities to have more control over gun ordinances, or just change the state's gun laws altogether.

The voice of America's young people demand "their elected officials do their jobs and keep them safe," the mayors wrote. "We owe it to those who have lost their lives to gun violence, and to those whose lives we can save yet from tragedy."

Click here to read the mayor's full USA Today op-ed.

Patch reporter Taylor Loose contributed.

Image via Oleksandr Lutsenko/ShutterStock