Capitol Office

State Capitol
201 West Capitol Avenue, Rm
101-K
Jefferson City, MO 651016806
Tele: (573) 751-0100
E-Mail:
Stacey.Newman@house.mo.g
ov
DISTRICT ADDRESS
6340 Clayton Road #206
St. Louis, MO 63117
Tele: (314) 781.7707

MISSOURI HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES

MEDIA REQUESTS:
314.494.4399

State Representative
District 87

COMMITTEES
Member:
AppropriationsGeneral Administration
Children and Families
Elections
Ethics
Select Committee State &
Local Government
Chair, House Progressive
Caucus
Deputy Minority Whip

Stacey Newman

December 11, 2016

Dear Gov-Elect Greitens,
I sincerely regret that your wife experienced a frightening robbery at gunpoint in St. Louis
City last week not far from your home. It is not an experience that anyone should face and
Im relieved that she and the other nearby robbery victim were not physically harmed.
As you are well aware, robbery or carjacking attempts which involve a firearm, often result
in tragic consequences. Alderwoman Lyda Krewson, a gun violence survivor, knows this
well. Years ago her husband was shot and killed in a carjacking in front of their Central
West End home with their two young children in the back seat and she miraculously
escaped harm.
I urge you to talk with St. Louis City Police Chief Sam Dotson and check out his website,
www.slmpd.org for weekly statistics on city crime, particularly those involving firearms. You
will notice homicides and robberies are at a pace rivaling those of major city populations
throughout the country. Talk with the nearby Clayton police chief who will tell you that
stolen guns are the number one crime issue in his major suburban business center, as well
as the city of St. Louis. The easy availability of firearms in a metropolitan area is a dire
issue to those who have the professional responsibility to keep populations safe and alive.
Chief Dotson, along with the Missouri Police Chiefs Association, Missouri Fraternal Order of
Police, county prosecutors, medical professionals and more urged your party in the
legislature this past year to defeat SB656 - which abolished sheriff-issued permits in order
to carry concealed weapons and included the stand your ground defense which has been
shown to greatly increase gun deaths, particularly of African Americans. However,
legislators ignored the pleas of those who deal with gun violence every day and night in our
cities and overturned Governor Nixons veto.
Gun violence is not just robbery attempts or homicides in those bad neighborhoods many
choose to avoid. It includes suicides, domestic violence incidents often killing an entire
family and even little kids who have ready access to an adults gun and shoot themselves
or someone else. In fact, Missouri was #1 in 2015 toddler shootings across the country
little ones barely able to walk who pulled the trigger of a gun. Check out

http://childrensfirearmsafetyalliance.com which documents unintentional shootings of

children by children every single day, many which have occurred in Missouri.
Last year Washington University in St. Louis, in your own backyard, became incensed at our
alarming rate of gun violence and launched their ongoing Gun Violence Initiative, now
parked at the universitys Institute for Public Health. Physicians, researchers and students
study and work with numerous community organizations, including regional hospitals to find
ways to lower injury and death rates due to gun violence. Leading national medical experts
and scientists throughout the nation collaborate with those at Washington University and St.
Louis Universitys Schools of Medicine because as medical professionals, they are sick and
tired of treating gun violence patients every single day, many they often cannot save.
St. Louis is not the only city in Missouri suffering from a gun violence epidemic. Kansas City
is suffering as are smaller communities throughout the state. Mayor Sly James and Jackson
County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker have been working diligently with innovative Kansas
City community programs to decrease gun crimes, working around the clock to keep guns
out of the hands of dangerous citizens.
No zip code is immune from death and injury through careless use of firearms. I urge you to
look at Missouri incidents catalogued just for 2016 at www.gunviolencearchive.org.
But as a current resident of the city of St. Louis, you must know much of this already. Im
sure youve seen plenty of photos of grieving families in the media, particularly of those
trying to make sense of burying innocent kids far too soon, kids who were simply doing
homework in their living rooms or happened to find their parents gun laying on a nearby
table.
Once inaugurated next month, you soon will have the power, ability and the responsibility
to address gun violence. There are concrete solutions to lowering our death rates, simply
by keeping firearms from those who should not have access to them. Over 80% of
Missourians believe that every gun purchase should undergo a federal background check
and that domestic abusers and those on the no-fly list should not be allowed to purchase
firearms. Those are simple ideas that have widespread support which you can champion
immediately once in office, with solid approval from law enforcement, prosecutors and
medical professionals.
You, as Missouris next governor, can be a hero (like you were as a Navy Seal) in standing
up to corporate lobbies and be proactive in saving peoples lives, including children like
your own.
Please dont allow someone else to become a firearm fatality after your wifes frightening
robbery.
Our families desperately need a hero right now.
Most sincerely,