St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones (D) is in damage control mode after an open records request revealed private text messages in which Jones noted the ineffectiveness of gun control in cities such as Chicago.
The text messages appear to counter a pro-gun control stance Jones has publicly maintained after high profile firearm-related crimes in her city.
KSDK reported that one of the text messages was drawn from “a chat” with her father on March 21, 2023. Jones’s message noted, “Chicago has strict gun laws as well but that doesn’t deter gun violence.”
A person watches as officers work the scene where five people were shot during a Father’s Day gathering at Wendell Smith Park in the 9900 block of South Princeton Avenue in the Roseland neighborhood Sunday, June 18, 2023 (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images).
The text message is being contrasted with a statement Jones made on gun control last month, in which she said, “Our state’s lax gun laws make our challenge even more difficult. … The legislature’s lack of action on gun safety laws encourages the proliferation of guns on our streets and puts our responding officers directly in harm’s way.”
On June 3, 2022, the St. Louis Government’s website posted a proclamation from Jones, declaring June 3 as “Gun Violence Awareness Day.”
Jones used the proclamation to push universal background checks, an “assault weapons” ban, and a red flag law.
KSKD noted that Jones’s text messages also drew attention because they seemed to indicate “investing in the people” is a better way to go.
The text about investing stood out because just four months ago, on March 9, 2023, Jones derided what she called a “crazy editorial” from State Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin (R), “who called for improving education, workforce training, and greater economic development to reverse the currents of desperation that sweep teens toward crime.”
Jones’s aides are trying to “control the fallout” from the texts while also working to “remove them from public view.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.