St. Louis is asking the Missouri Court of Appeals to keep a city rule that would require gun owners to secure firearms left in unattended cars in locked containers. The appeal comes after a lower-court judge struck down the 2017 ordinance and sets up a major test of how much power Missouri cities have to use local rules to fight gun theft. The case stems from a St. Louis man whose handgun was stolen from his parked car while he attended Mass, an episode that prompted the city to start citing people under the ordinance.
In arguments this week, city lawyers told an appellate panel the lock box requirement is a narrowly tailored public safety tool aimed at stopping stolen guns from flowing into violent crime, according to St. Louis Public Radio. The city has formally appealed Circuit Judge Joseph Whyte’s ruling and is asking the judges to preserve its authority to require secured storage in unattended vehicles.
Circuit Judge Joseph P. Whyte struck down the ordinance in July 2025, finding it conflicted with state law that sharply limits local control over firearms. St. Louis Magazine reports that Whyte wrote the rule “attempts to regulate the ‘use,’ ‘keeping,’ or ‘possession’ of firearms,” language that sits at the center of the state’s preemption argument.
Missouri’s preemption statute declares the General Assembly “occupies and preempts the entire field of legislation touching in any way firearms, components, ammunition and supplies,” a provision courts have repeatedly cited in fights over local gun rules. That statutory language frames the core question on appeal, whether a storage mandate is a permissible public safety regulation or an unlawful local restriction on possession and use. FindLaw / RSMo 21.750
City attorneys, led in the appeal by Nathan Puckett, told the panel the ordinance targets theft and trafficking rather than ownership. Michael Roth’s lawyer, Matt Vianello, countered that only uniform statewide rules can prevent a confusing patchwork of local requirements for gun owners, St. Louis Public Radio reports. The appellate judges now have to weigh those competing views against the plain text of state law.
The 2017 ordinance, introduced by then Alderwoman Lyda Krewson, requires firearms left in unattended motor vehicles to be stored in a locked container permanently affixed to the vehicle, and it also requires owners to report lost or stolen firearms to police within 48 hours. The text of the law states that the city designed the rule to make gun trafficking harder and the recovery of stolen weapons easier. City ordinance No. 70502 (2017)
Why the city says it matters
St. Louis officials argue the ordinance is a direct response to a clear shift in how guns are being stolen. More firearms are disappearing from parked vehicles than in past years, they say, and that is feeding local crime. A June 2025 analysis by the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice found that from 2018 to 2022, reported gun thefts from motor vehicles rose substantially, and that thefts from parking lots and garages increased faster than other categories.
How the lawsuit began
The lawsuit began after a St. Louis man reported that his pistol had been stolen from his locked car while he was at Mass at the Cathedral Basilica in the Central West End and then received a citation under the ordinance for failing to keep the weapon in a locked box. His legal challenge targets both the storage rule and the reporting requirement, arguing the city stepped into a field that state law has fully preempted. St. Louis Magazine
Legal questions at stake
The appeals court must decide whether a narrowly crafted storage mandate is a valid use of municipal police power or whether it unlawfully regulates possession and use in conflict with RSMo 21.750. If the court sides with St. Louis, other Missouri cities could try similar storage requirements. If it upholds Whyte’s decision, it would bolster a broad reading of state preemption that leaves little room for local gun rules. RSMo 21.750
What comes next
The Missouri Court of Appeals will accept briefs and weigh oral arguments before issuing an opinion, a process that could take months. Whatever the outcome, the decision is expected to send a clear signal to city halls across the state about how far they can go with local public safety policies that touch firearms. For now, St. Louis officials point to rising vehicle theft data to defend the lock box rule, while opponents warn that a patchwork of local ordinances would only make compliance and enforcement harder. Council on Criminal Justice
