Neosho mayor attacks liberals, modern culture and people who would ban AR-15s, but not Girl Scout cookies and pitchforks

During a wide-ranging interview this morning with host Nick Reed on KSGF in Springfield, Neosho Mayor Ben Baker addressed the controversy that has arisen over his statements on a 9-and-under youth baseball team's selling raffle tickets for an AR-15 rifle.

Baker claimed that his friend Levi Patterson, the coach of the team, has been receiving threats and then blamed the media for spreading misinformation and while he was at it also launched broadsides at the following targets:

-People who don't understand firearms

-Elected officials not having First Amendment rights

-Out-of-state liberals who support abortion and Planned Parenthood

-Violence in movies, rap music and video games


-Pets having more rights than people

-The use of drugs to treat students with mental health issues

-People's hypocrisy in wanting to ban guns when they would not try to ban Girl Scout Cookies or pitchforks if they caused a death

Following the issuance of a statement from the Neosho City Attorney Tuesday that made it clear Baker was not speaking for the city, Baker, who is a Republican candidate for the 160th District state representative position currently held by term-limited Rep. Bill Reiboldt, R-Seneca, said he was speaking for himself and that the reaction to the raffle has shocked him.

"This is something that is very common in southwest Missouri and it's very common to raffle off an AR-15."


Baker said the people who opposed this "don't understand firearms for one thing," though he never explained what it was they did not understand. He described the murders of 17 people in Parkland, Florida by a man using an AR-15 rifle as a "horrific thing," but said people go to the "we have to do something now" mindset when these tragedies occur.

Baker, who has not been stopped from talking to anyone in the media about the raffle, claiming that as an elected official "you have no First Amendment rights." He was referring to the criticism that he has received since his statements in which he blamed criticism of the raffle on liberals and his claim that nearly everyone in Neosho thinks the same way he does.

The media attention has caused problems for Levi Patterson, the coach of the 9-and-under baseball team, and his wife, Baker said.

"They're fearing for the safety of their family. It's just wrong."

At that point in the interview, Baker attacked the media.

"They look for the next person they can demonize and drag into the controversy. It just happened to be me and I would rather it be me than the people in my community."

The problems all come from people outside of the community, Baker said, from people who do not understand the way people in these parts think.

"This is southwest Missouri, this is not San Francisco or other parts of the country where they can't ever relate to someone owning a firearm. Most of the outcry has come from people out of state."


Baker said he checked the profiles of the people who were criticizing him. "They're not from this area. They don't have any idea of the culture here. Most of them have pictures of 'I Support Planned Parenthood' or Bernie. There is a faction of the 'resist' crowd that's the extreme left. They'll attack and threaten people's lives in the name of compassion and that just frustrates me."

Baker is also frustrated by the two or three people in this area (nearly everyone else has been gracious, he said) who have that "extreme mentality to get things stirred up with the national news.

"The majority of the people in this community are in support (of the raffle)." Most of them, Baker added, are asking 'How can we buy raffle tickets?' "

In the next portion of the interview, Baker addressed the opponents of the raffle as "hypocritical," saying, "We've killed over 60 million babies in the womb since 1973 and the left is fine with that.

"They're fine with our tax dollars going to Planned Parenthood killing a baby every 90 seconds and then selling their body parts for cash."

After that, Baker aimed at today's culture.

He attacked movies, videos and a music culture that "glamorize violence" and have created a culture where "human life has no value.

"Pets have more rights than people."

Baker added, "It's a culture that blames it on everything except the real problem. I can't buy into the idea that an AR-15 is going to cause trauma to people who see it."

Baker read lyrics from a rap song in which the singer talks about killing people with an AK-47. The culture, he said, "is where they get their ideas to put into action.

"That's the real problem that needs to be looked at."

And then it was the schools, where students with mental problems are evaluated, given some drugs, then placed back into the system.

Finally, Baker addressed the idea that people want to ban guns when there is a mass killing, but don't treat other weapons in the same fashion. He offered an example of a killer luring people with Girl Scout cookies and said no one would think of banning Girl Scout cookies.

Then Baker told a story he had heard from his wife's relatives in California about a man who broke into a house and killed the children, who were there alone, with a pitchfork.

Those children were unable to defend themselves because their parents followed the law and locked up the guns where the children could not get to them.

"I've never heard people say pitchforks are the problem."

(Baker's interview can be heard beginning at about the 2 hour, 30 minute mark.)

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