Really, long guns aren’t an issue here; I just needed a cute title to grab attention.
Today, two new laws take effect in Missouri. First, the “permit to transfer” paperwork to transfer a “concealable firearm” (handguns) is gone, (as I thought it was repealed in a May 20 post in this space), replaced by the Federal instant background check that is the norm in most other places. Gun shows were never successful in Missouri because of the now-dispatched system; the Permit to Transfer paperwork and mandated waiting period was up to seven days. Now I imagine that there will be more and increasingly successful gun shows in the state.
Second, the three-day waiting period between applying for a marriage license and actually receiving it is now gone. The purpose of the “old gin law” was to deter hasty and intoxicated marriages, though legally speaking, since marriage is a contract, and being drunk or high precludes genuineness of assent into any contract, therefore any contract (including marriage) would be declared null and void if any one party was proven to be intoxicated.
So this means that, starting today, a shotgun wedding could happen on the same day that the old man gets mad.
Otherwise, in the immortal words of Johnny Cash:
We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout,
We’ve been talkin’ ’bout Jackson, ever since the fire went out.
I’m goin’ to Jackson, I’m gonna mess around,
Yeah, I’m goin’ to Jackson,
Look out Jackson town.
