(Headline USA) St. Louis Democrat Mayor Tishaura Jones privately admitted that gun control policies do not work despite publicly advocating for them, according to obtained messages.
Jones has called for stricter gun restrictions on a number of occasions, including last month following a mass shooting that killed one and injured 11 others.
“Our state’s lax gun laws make our challenge even more difficult,” Jones said in June following the shooting. “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.”
Specifically, Jones has called for “expanding background checks to all gun sales, regulating assault weapons and passing a federal red flag law.”
However, in a private group chat with her father, Virvus Jones, and adviser Richard Callow on March 21, Jones admitted that such policies would be pointless.
“Chicago has strict gun laws as well but that doesn’t deter gun violence,” Jones wrote, according to KSDK. “It’s about investing in the people.”
In another text to her father and Callow, Jones compared St. Louis’s crime rates to Newark, New Jersey, which has far fewer murders and better violence prevention programs.
“Newark, NJ has the same size population, same size police force, and similar racial demographics, yet had 50 murders in 2022,” she wrote. “I visited these programs first hand and I know that they work. We just need the will….”
After the text messages were released, Jones’s office insisted that they mayor still supports gun control.
“Gun laws are just one part of the solution,” Jones spokesman Nick Desideri said. “There’s a difference between deterring behavior and making it harder to get firearms and weaponry; for example, there’s no doubt that gun laws in the blue region around Newark help reduce violence as opposed to here.”
