I want to encourage them to
thank them for what they did,
the quick response time that they had,
and for taking the action.
They took the action to take a
a bad guy off the streets off
that to save a lot of lives.
And I think it's quite apparent
now that we know what we do know.
Still a lot of facts that come in on
all the details behind the scenes,
but the good news is they saved a
lot of lives by taking action away.
They did.
School system also will be trying to
reach out to them probably in the
near future once they get back there
to really talk about what they've done.
It looks like they did everything they
could do to to minimize a tragic situation.
So really just up here today
just to make sure they knew that
we were thinking about them,
that we care about them and we just
want to thank them for their service to
the community, which family members.
Officers or some of the victims of
the shooting at the school or both.
No, no, no. There.
There's basically the officers that were
here today and some of their families.
I mean that the business members
and the victims and the school,
you know, those will be different
times that we'll be able to do that.
But again, we'll be back to,
to address some of those issues also.
But really had to do with a lot of
the police officers up there today,
their families,
a lot of the administration and just
really up there talking to them a
little bit for what they went through
and what the families went through.
A lot of those officers had
children in school.
In situations like that, governor,
although all the red flags were there,
why weren't the red flag laws?
I mean, the,
the red flag laws have never
been in place in Missouri.
You know,
you're still talking about somebody
with a mental illness that that went
into it and committed a criminal act
that really the school had a lockdown.
They had it locked down.
They did exactly what they're supposed to do,
the response of the officers,
exactly what they should do.
You got a criminal that committed
that committed a criminal act.
You know,
and all the laws in the world are
not going to stop those things.
When when they occur when somebody's
violent criminal and they go
out there and commit a crime,
exactly why they're violating.
On October 15th went to his home,
found a gun, but because of
your lawmakers Second Amendment
Act that was passed in 2017,
they weren't allowed to confiscate
that weapon because he didn't
have a prior felony conviction in
a across the river in Illinois.
Had the same situation happened,
this gun would have been confiscated
because his family knew that he
had mental illness as you claimed.
Why not change the law and make these
officers lives easier to help them
confiscate weapons and get them off the
street for people who don't need to have?
Well, first of all,
the information when you start
out questions inaccurate because
as the federal laws he didn't
violate the federal laws.
You're talking about a long
rifle is what protection act.
The Second Amendment
doesn't protect him from taking a
mental health. That's a separate,
that's a separate issue in the state
of Missouri that we look at whether
somebody has mental health issues or not.
You know, I don't think there's any question
if people have mental health issues,
you can take their weapons on that
and that's part of the bill that was
passed and I think you can go in
there and read that if you go do that.
Under what law? What law?
Yeah. No, he clarified.
Actually says you king.
I I just answered your question.
It no, it doesn't say that at all.
If you go in there and read it,
if somebody is incompetent on mental health,
you know issues you can to do that.
And if they're found by that,
by a court especially, they can do that.
Look like, you know, everybody's
trying to make this the gun issue.
I get that on on the media side of it.
But the bottom line is a guy person,
whether it's a bomb,
whether it's a rifle, whether it's a car,
no matter where you live,
whether it's in Saint Louis
is no different in Chicago.
El Paso, Philadelphia, Seattle.
You can go all across country,
the strictest gun laws in the nation,
and they have the same
problems that we have here.
And what happened in this
school was a tragedy.
It was a tragedy for the students.
It was tragedy for the school.
But it happens every,
almost every week in Saint Louis until we do,
where we get more police
officers on the streets,
till we start prosecuting violent criminals
and locking them up in this state,
this is not going to change.
That's what's going to have to take.
We've.
Going to record amount of
money in the budget this year,
almost a 23% increase in mental health.
We've been up here to help with safe streets.
We've been up here to work
with the urban lag.
A lot of actions were taken.
You know,
they're trying to protect schools and protect
everybody else on those streets every day.
But there's a lot,
you know,
you just got to keep working.
We've worked with city administrators
ever since I've been governor.
I've met with the mayors early on
trying to figure out what we can do
to be able to help the situation.
They're going to continue to do that.
You believe there should be an
armed officer in every school?
Yeah, I mean,
if you're gonna have security officers,
I think you've got to really reevaluate that.
I mean that's up to the schools aside that.
But if you don't have a security officer,
you sure want to be able to provide security.
I think most people think whether you
wouldn't know wherever you might go
if you've got armed people in there,
I think it makes a difference I think.
But, but again, but again.
Listen,
if you want to ask me questions,
I'll ask you questions.
But if you're going to sit there
and interrupt me when I'm asking questions,
I don't need to talk to you anymore.
I'll be glad to talk to these other reporters
here to show a little bit of respect.
One more question.
How can you say you're pro
police if this Police Department
is suing you to overturn the
the Second Amendment Preservation Act?
I'm gonna tell you something. You know,
the cities can take whatever action they want
and that's a legal action that can take.
I've been a law abiding citizen all my life.
I'm gonna support people to have
weapons that are law abiding citizens.
I'm never going to take that right away from
the legislators decided not to do either.
That doesn't say you can't take them away
from violent criminals, doesn't say you
can't take away from mental health issue.
I think all those issues are things to
be talked about to be able to do that.
But I think this is way, lot more spin
to it than really what the case is.
What we need to find out is what created
this young man to do what he did.
You know, that's the whole you're talking
about a young guy and what actions were
taken and how do we do things about her?
How do we secure the sitter goes back to you?
What things can we do to be face to
face with some of the officers that
came face to face with this gunman
and what we message to them?
Thank them for their service.
I thank them for doing that every day,
you know, hey, you know,
so many times they've been critical,
you know,
with all the people out there that,
you know,
defund the police and all of those things,
these guys did exactly what nobody else
wanted to do and went into that facility
in a hot situation and took out a shooter.
You know,
if we don't have those people on the front
lines out there doing things that none of us,
the rest of us want to do, you know,
I thank them for their service.
I thanked them for doing that.
I thank their families for being behind
them to make sure they support them when
other people don't support them every day,
you know?
You get to thinking about some
things are being said politically.
You know,
when you start talking about trying to
send somebody into a situation like that,
whether some people would say,
you know,
social workers or go to a different Ave.
What do you think would have happened
if that would occur with a guy
with 600 rounds in there and no
law enforcement to take him out?
You know,
people really need to take a
step back and think what it is
law enforcement do every day.
And what I really went up there
to do was tell them how much I
appreciate what they do every day
and how much I thank them for
doing it. Thank you.