GOP AG Fires Back At Pro-2A Attacks On Her For Allegedly Going Soft On Stand Your Ground Law
Republican Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway disputed allegations that she was soft on Second Amendment issues after reports emerged about a Tuesday meeting with local law enforcement officials who criticized the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law.
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Jackson County Prosecutor Melesa Johnson claimed during the meeting that the state’s law prevented her from adequately prosecuting those involved in a shootout during a February 2024 parade celebrating the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl win, Kansas City-area TV station KMBC reported. Johnson reportedly told Hanaway that she’d dropped 103 cases due to the law in 2025 and 2026, while some argued that some of the cases never should have been brought. (RELATED: CDC Restores Study Acknowledging Self-Defense Gun Use Buried During Biden Era)
“The Chiefs parade. That has caused all of us, I think, in law enforcement, to take a look at the use of force statute,” Hanaway reportedly said in response to Johnson’s complaints, according to the Kansas City, Missouri, TV station.
Pro-Second Amendment groups backed “Stand Your Ground” laws, arguing that law-abiding citizens shouldn’t have to retreat when they are attacked. Anti-Second Amendment groups argued that a duty to retreat should be required before the use of deadly force.
“Stand Your Ground laws allow a person to kill another person even when they can clearly and safely walk away from the danger,” gun-control group Everytown claims on its website.
Hanaway came under fire from BearingArms.com columnist Tom Knighton for her remarks.
“While I want to see criminals locked up and locked up for a long time, I’m fine with not making the prosecution’s life easier on defensive gun uses,” Knighton wrote. “I don’t want them playing Monday morning quarterback because someone figured out that someone might feasibly squeeze through a fence and escape in the cold light of day as opposed to the night before, when adrenaline is pumping through their veins instead of actual blood.”
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“If Hanaway won’t stand up for Stand Your Ground, she needs to find a new job. That seems clear, and she can take Johnson with her,” Knighton continued.
A spokesperson from Hanaway’s office detailed her track record on Second Amendment issues in a statement when reached for comment by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Attorney General Hanaway strongly supports and will always defend the Second Amendment protections in Missouri and in our country. Any suggestion otherwise is nonsensical and baseless,“ the statement said. “General Hanaway won against Jackson County when they tried to violate the Second Amendment by banning handgun purchases by adults under 21, and she has won in defense of Missouri’s pro-gun laws at our state Supreme Court.“
“As Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives, she took back the Missouri Legislature from liberal Democrats and passed Missouri’s first concealed carry law, overriding a Democrat Governor’s veto in the process, and has publicly supported constitutional carry for years,” the statement continued. “General Hanaway emphasizes that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Heller clearly affirmed that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms for self‑defense, and she remains committed to defending Missourians’ individual liberties. Other prosecutors in our state, including the Attorney General’s Office, are not having issues with Stand Your Ground laws in the fight against violent crime. Liberal gun laws are never the solution, and our office’s ability to consistently lock up violent criminals is a testament to the way our current prosecution system is functioning.”
The state’s “Stand Your Ground” passed in 2016, when the state Legislature overrode then-Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of the measure. The law allows a person to defend themselves without having to retreat from a potential attacker.
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