JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A Missouri lawmaker wants to expand the state's self-defense law to grant wide latitude to shooters who claim they killed because they were in danger.
Currently, suspects are required to raise a self-defense claim to prosecutors, who must then prove at trial that there was no threat.
A bill sponsored by Sen. Eric Burlison, a Battlefield Republican, would relieve shooters, or those who threaten to shoot, of that responsibility by granting them a "presumption of reasonableness" — and immunity from prosecution.
The measure is backed by the same gun activists who celebrated a victory last year with a far-reaching new state Second Amendment law. It is also supported by Mark McCloskey, the St. Louis lawyer and U.S. Senate candidate best known for brandishing a gun from his front lawn as police brutality protesters marched past his house in 2020.
Several law enforcement groups, including the state's largest police unions, urged lawmakers not to pass the bill during a hearing Tuesday before the Senate transportation, infrastructure and public safety committee.
They said the legislation would require police and prosecutors to essentially assume any shooting is a self-defense case.
"I refer to it as the 'Make Murder Legal Act,'" said Stoddard County Prosecutor Russell Oliver, of the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys. "Basically what this does is make it where so long as the person is dead, you automatically have immunity because there's not someone else to even say what had happened."
Missourians already have the right to self-defense, said Scott Swain, lobbyist for the Missouri Police Chiefs Association.
Missouri already allows people to use lethal force if they "reasonably believe" it is necessary to protect themselves or someone else from "death, serious physical injury, or any forcible felony." Circumstances cited in the law include when someone is breaking into or trying to enter one's home or car.
The state extends the "castle doctrine" of protecting one's self and home into the public. There is no duty to retreat from a confrontation if it occurs at home or any other place one is legally allowed to be, according to Missouri law.
"The police chiefs support the right to bear arms, they support the right to protect yourself," Swain said. "And they also recognize the burden is on the government to prove otherwise in those self-defense cases. We believe the process exists."
Burlison sponsored last year's Second Amendment Preservation Act, which prohibits state and local police from cooperating with federal agents on a variety of federal gun laws.
That law has forced Missouri police to cut off a number of firearms-related federal partnerships; the Missouri Supreme Court next week is scheduled to hear a challenge brought by local governments, including Jackson County.
Burlison and the Missouri Firearms Coalition say the state's gun laws need to be further loosened to protect gun owners from experiencing incidents like McCloskey's.
After being captured on video pointing guns as a crowd of peaceful protesters made their way past his St. Louis home in 2020, McCloskey and his wife Patricia were charged with felony weapons violations. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor fourth-degree assault last summer and weeks later received a pardon from Gov. Mike Parson.
"You have to have the jury decide the issue of whether or not you committed a crime, and then whether or not the 'castle doctrine' provides you with a defense," McCloskey said. "That's backwards."
He sparred with Sen. Brian Williams, a University City Democrat, over the bill and whether the protesters outside his home, who were marching over disproportionate police killings of Black men, posed a threat.
McCloskey has said he was in fear for his life and that the "mob" had threatened murder and rape. The protesters had walked through a broken gate onto his street, contemporaneous press accounts show, and were marching to the St. Louis mayor's home when they were met by the McCloskeys holding guns.
Critics of the bill said it would open the door to racial violence and vigilantism. They mentioned the cases of Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012 and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia in 2020, both Black victims killed by shooters who followed them and then claimed self-defense.
Williams called the bill "bullshit."
"I was the first Black man in two decades to be elected to this body," he said. "This is one of the most offensive pieces of legislation I have ever seen in my life. It's a personal attack on me. It's a personal attack on people who look like me."
