Missouri Senators Cite Gun, U.N. Conspiracy Theories In Voting To Defund Driver’s License Bureau

By Nicole Flatow on Apr 23, 2013 at 1:30 pm

In retribution against a Missouri agency’s record-keeping of concealed carry gun permits, the state Senate voted Monday to eliminate all funding for the Department of Revenue’s driver’s license bureau and slashed funding for several other agencies. If the measure became law, it would halt the issuance of driver’s licenses in the state, and would hobble the core functioning of several other agencies that senators believe played a role in collecting gun permit information to combat fraud. Raw Story explains:

Republican lawmakers in Missouri became alarmed at a recent hearing at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing when Revenue Department Director Brian Long refused to agree to stop scanning and retaining concealed carry data. Long said that the records helped to prevent fraud.

Long resigned from his post as director earlier this month.

The 2005 federal Real ID Act requires states to retain a database of scanned documents for verifying identity. Missouri appeared to be the only state where the license bureau was charged with printing concealed carry permits, either on driver’s licenses or as a separate document. Lawmakers gave the licensing bureau control over concealed carry permits in 2003 to help law enforcement identify people who were [sic] weapons.

But lawmakers have recently become increasingly concerned that gun records would be shared with federal officials to create a gun registry that could lead to confiscations.

Melissa Wilson, wife of state Rep. Kenneth Wilson (R), told the committee earlier this month that she was certain that gun records had been shared with the federal government as a part of a United Nations initiative called Agenda 21, which some conservatives believe is a conspiracy to “transform America from the land of the free, to the land of the collective” through “a mind-control” tactic called the Delphi technique.

A 2009 Missouri law prohibits state officials from implementing the federal Real ID Act, and a state House panel this week approved legislation that made it illegal to share information about concealed carry permits.

Lawmakers may have some reason to be concerned about the privacy of Missouri’s record-keeping generally. Gov. Jay Nixon (D) recently ordered an end to electronic copies of concealed carry permits, after a list was sent to a fraud investigator at the Social Security Administration (who did not use the list). But concerns that the record-keeping will lead to gun confiscation or play a role in a United Nations conspiracy theory are completely unfounded. Federal gun registries are already illegal, and nothing in Obama’s executive orders nor the defeated congressional proposals would come close to widespread confiscation, which would be aSecond Amendment violation. The theory that some claim will “transform America” — Agenda 21 — is nothing more than a series of non-binding recommendations about how to better use natural resources in promoting development. But that has not stopped some from alleging that Obama is using a mind-control technique known as “Delphi” to garner support for the U.N. plan. A concern more grounded in reality is how the state will protect public safety if it abolishes its drivers’ license system.