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About 70 Gun Bills Filed by State Lawmakers This Year

Missouri's Capitol Building in 2017.
Meiying Wu / KBIA

From tougher penalties for illegal gun use to expansion of the places guns can legally be carried, at least 72 firearm-related bills have been filed so far this legislative session. That's the largest number in a decade.

For Democrats, who make up a minority of the legislature, significant across-the-aisle support will be needed in order to pass any of their proposed policies. Republicans, on the other hand, could have a much easier time seeing their bills become law. 

Around 45 of those bills aim to restrict access or add regulations to the use of guns in some form, while almost all the rest want to make sure Second Amendment rights aren't infringed upon or are expanded. Here is a look at some of this year's more notable gun bills. 

One of the only proposals with bipartisan sponsorship is Blair's Law, backed by Rep. Nick Schroer, R-O'Fallon,; Rep. Rory Rowland, D-Independence, and Rep. Mark Sharp, D-Kansas City. The law would prohibit discharging a firearm within or into any municipality, but with numerous exceptions. Some of those include supervised shooting ranges, justifiable self-defense and areas that are more than a mile from any occupied structure.

Named after 11-year-old Blair Shanahan Lane, the bill would punish the perpetrator with a class A misdemeanor. Lane died in 2011 from a stray bullet fired by a group of men engaged in "celebratory gunfire" for Independence Day.

To read more, visit our partners at the Columbia Missourian.

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