Neosho City Council action: Residents call for Mayor Ben Baker to resign

The controversy over Mayor Ben Baker's comments about a youth baseball team holding a raffle for an AR-15 continued at tonight's Neosho City Council meeting as about 30 people attended with most of them wanting the mayor to resign.

Susanna Smith read a letter signed by 57 Neosho residents criticizing Baker's labeling those who opposed the children selling the raffle tickets as "hateful outsiders."

"This is most certainly not the case," Smith read. "This is not the same debate that is going on nationally, although our issue made national news. This conversation is not about the Second Amendment, nor is about gun culture in general.

"It is about the inappropriateness of children holding a raffle for, and thus advertising, an AR-15."

The letter noted that the AR-15 has been used in school shootings.

While some spoke to call for Baker to step down, John Birner defended the mayor, recalling his efforts with flood recovery and noting that more people die from falling out of beds than from guns.

Baker became the focal point of the controversy over the raffle ticket sales when he gave interviews to numerous media outlets, including KZRG in Joplin and KSGF in Springfield, in which he gave the impression that nearly everyone who lives in the Neosho area supported the raffle and that those who did not were trying to cause trouble.

Neosho City Attorney Steve Hays issued a statement saying that Baker, who is running for the state representative seat currently held by term-limited Bill Reiboldt, was speaking for himself and not for the City of Neosho.

The text of the letter is printed below:


Neosho Gun Raffle Issue: Letter to City Council 

People who can only see one side of any given issue tend to demonize the other side. 

This is what is happening in the case of our mayor accusing a group of concerned Neosho citizens of being hateful outsiders. This is most certainly NOT the case. This is not the same debate that is going on nationally, although our issue made national news. 

This conversation, is not about the second amendment, nor is it about gun culture in general. It is about the inappropriateness of children holding a raffle for, and thus advertising, an AR 15 rifle. 

It is particularly horrifying to a significant part of our population because this is the rifle of choice in school shootings, which are becoming alarmingly more common. 

The secondary issue is that the use of the Wildcat school logo implies that the raffle is sanctioned by the R-5 school district, which it is not. Being proud to be a Wildcat is beside the point. 

In any discussions of guns, it is time for both sides to tone down the rhetoric, forget the culture wars and try to understand the bigger picture. Don’t accuse folks of saying things they are not, nor accuse them of spouting hateful vitriol or being elitist liberals just because they disagree with you. 

When people have different points of view, look to see if their ideas seem to be well-thought-out suggestions for improving our community in some way. We want our schools to be safe, and raffling off a military-style rifle does not send that message to the community nor to anyone who may want to visit here.