Brattin is a conservative Republican known for pushing his party further to the right. Now, he’s sponsored a bill that would exempt the purchase of firearms and ammunition from all sales tax, and offer tax incentives to companies that make or sell them. Democrats described it as another stark example of misplaced priorities. Even five Republicans broke from their ranks and voted against the measure.

Still, Senate Bill 131 narrowly passed.

Ask about it here, you’ll learn two things quickly: Few know about the bill. Few are surprised.

In this swath of Missouri south of Kansas City, a mix of rural and fast-growing suburbs, guns are as common as butter.

Max Motors created a frenzy when, several years ago, it offered vouchers for free AK-47s with the purchase of new trucks. Camera crews even showed up from Russia.

“It’s for protection,” car-dealer Mark Muller, cigar in hand, black cowboy hat on the head, explained to one interviewer. “It’s all about freedom. It’s about our Constitutional, God-given right.”

Headlines have calmed since then, but the same sentiment is used to sell vehicles today. A white, blue and red Christian flag flies over the F-250s and vans in the lot. Inside the lobby, a “Military Hall of Honor” champions veterans.

Brattin, 42, brandishes the same message. He’s a Christian man who served in the Marines, as Cass County auditor and four terms in the House. He was elected to the Senate in 2020.

He’s been in the news before: In 2014, The Guardian, a British newspaper, covered a bill Brattin introduced that would require women to receive written consent of a fetus’ father before getting an abortion. He proposed a bill one year later that would revoke scholarships from collegiate student athletes who refuse to play for a reason other than health, like to strike or boycott.

When he ran for Congress last year — he came in second in the primary — his campaign used a photo of him with his wife and five children. Each posed with a rifle, finger near the trigger.

In his district, three counties along Missouri’s western edge, his new bill is not a shocker. Residents often have a visceral reaction to threats against their Second Amendment right to bear arms.

That said, the majority of people interviewed here didn’t feel as strongly as Brattin apparently does about eliminating sales tax on firearms. It would take away from the community they want to protect.

And they said there are better items to exempt from sales tax that would benefit everyone.

On April 6, Brattin’s gun bill passed 19-15 in the GOP-controlled Missouri Senate. That same day, Senate Bill 143, which would exempt sales tax on diapers and feminine hygiene products, passed 28-6. That bill garnered more bipartisan support and the admiration of people like Liza Weiss, executive director of the nonprofit organization Missouri Appleseed.

“We think these are necessities,” Weiss said. “We think this is a health concern.”

Brattin has said the gun bill was needed to make firearms cheaper, draw more gun industry to Missouri and fortify a constitutional right. According to legislative analysis, the measure would decrease state revenue by $83 million and local revenue by $94 million. It would also create easier access to firepower at a time when Missouri has one of the highest rates of fatal gun violence in the country and active shooter events are on a dramatic rise.

Last week in Jefferson City, Brattin was at his post as usual, arguing for less government. He wouldn’t come off the Senate floor to discuss the gun bill with the Post-Dispatch, nor would his chief of staff set up a more convenient time for him to visit.

At the other side of the Capitol, where the bill would need approval to advance, House Speaker Dean Plocher, R-Des Peres, said in the hallway that he wasn’t aware of the legislation. Asked if he supported the idea of exempting sales tax on firearms, Plocher said: “We’ll see what the committee does with it.”

Deep in Brattin’s district, his constituents weren’t so sure, either.

The Post-Dispatch interviewed 20 of them here. Most leaned conservative. Nearly all were familiar with guns. Few, if any, had heard of Brattin’s bill.

Seven — including a retired Marine master sergeant, a Pentecostal pastor’s wife and a cattle trader — said they liked the idea of cutting taxes on gun sales. Most of those argued, at least in part, that taxes were just too high, and they didn’t trust the government to spend wisely.

David Marsh, 45, a helicopter mechanic with a military background, was sitting one recent evening in the bleachers of a public park in tiny Centerview, east of Harrisonville, watching his home-schooled 9-year-old daughter’s softball practice. The outfield blended into a backdrop of sprouting row crops.

“You’ve got to start somewhere,” said Marsh, a former resident of Tennessee, which doesn’t collect individual income taxes. “Anything that reduces taxes is great. This state is highly overtaxed and you cannot see the result of those taxes.”

Morgan Koehn, 19, who is trying to figure out her future, was at Family Center Farm & Home on the edge of Harrisonville, the Cass County seat. She doesn’t like guns much, but her family does. And she said firearm prices have been skyrocketing. The country could go downhill fast. Or, in the case of her uncle, another mountain lion could threaten his livestock.

“You never know what the next day brings,” she said. She’d support the tax cut.

Most, however, disagreed.

“On the surface it sounds good,” said Larry Zent, 77, a Vietnam veteran. “But taking away from law enforcement and road repairs, I am not for that. Our law enforcement needs all it can get.”

Amanda Wallace, 32, who lives in a large trailer park in the middle of Harrisonville, laughed.

“It’s a lot easier to get a gun than it is a therapist,” said Wallace, who suffers from anxiety and PTSD and formerly had postpartum depression. “Mental illness is a thing and that’s why all these shootings are happening. People are not getting the proper care. They are letting their illnesses take over. They are not thinking straight.”

Wallace, who voted for Donald Trump in the last presidential election, said she eventually found help at Compass Health, which receives state funding. Her husband works construction. She’s a stay-at-home mom for their three children. Their rent is $680 a month. Food is one of their biggest expenses.

“Parents are out here struggling to buy formula, to buy diapers,” she said. “If we could make that easier on parents, why not?”

Sales tax has more impact on the poor because it takes up a larger percentage of their income. A provision to exempt sales tax on groceries was removed from the recent legislation because the cost estimate was a $200 million loss in state revenue and a $1.3 billion cut to local coffers.

Cass County’s annual budget is $50.8 million. It has five county sales taxes alone that add up to a rate of 1.5%. In 2022, county sales taxes generated $27.8 million, most of which paid for law enforcement, the justice center, juvenile detention, the prosecutor’s office, roads and bridges, and county administration services like running elections. Cass County doesn’t have any parks.

The city of Harrisonville has an annual budget of $51.8 million. In 2022, it collected $6.9 million in local sales taxes that helped support public safety, public works, streets, community development and Harrison City Park.

Morgan Welhoff, 28, was at the park on a recent day, playing on the swings and slides with her two small children — ages 2 and 1. She liked the idea of exempting sales tax on diapers and feminine hygiene products. She was puzzled by the guns piece, noting that the loss in revenue would take away from the park.

“Those are things that kids would also use,” she said.

Still, since she doesn’t have a gun or plan on buying one, she said she didn’t have a position on Brattin’s bill.

Bert Brookshire, 64, a retired industrial insulator, was walking into the Harrisonville Walmart. He said he has 30 guns. His father had him join the NRA in third grade to learn gun safety.

“Most critics of guns have never fired guns,” he said.

He target shoots every weekend.

“I like trajectories,” he said.

He said he’s invested more than $4,000 in a 6 mm Creedmoor rifle that he uses to hit targets from 1,000 yards away. Though he voted for Brattin, he doesn’t support exempting sales tax on firearms.

“Guns are a luxury item,” he said. “Just look at how much they cost in the first place.”

At Base Outfitters & Range, a family business in Knob Noster, in the far eastern edge of Brattin’s district, firearms run from a $53 Red Ryder BB gun to a $4,650 7.62 mm Scar model semi-automatic rifle.

“Somebody who is going to buy that gun isn’t going to do it just because there’s no sales tax,” said Micah Uptegrove, 32, one of the owners. “I don’t think many of us have a problem with paying taxes as long as it’s paying for something useful.”

By his estimate, most people in the area have at least 10 guns.

“We don’t worship guns,” he said. “We use them to hunt with.”

He said his 6-year-old niece shot her first deer last season with an AR-style rifle. He recommends shooting every week to keep your skills sharp.

John Cannon, 49, a gunsmith at the range and a former military policeman, said there were better items to exempt from sales tax than the guns he loves — like school supplies.

“There are a lot of hurting families out here,” he said. “They could use a tax break.”

Still, he said, the constitutional right to bear arms is as important as ever, even with Whiteman Air Force Base, home of the B-2 stealth bombers, just down the road.

“Without the Second Amendment, none of the other rights stand,” he said.

Cannon offered Afghanistan’s ability to fend off Russian and American superpowers as poignant examples.

“Idealism is what holds off rogue governments,” he said.