Vern Evans
When Missouri lawmakers passed the “Second Amendment Protection Act” in 2021 and Republican Gov. Mike Parson signed it into law, anti-gun advocates immediately challenged the law in court. Ultimately, a circuit court deemed the law unconstitutional, and enforcement was blocked.
Now, a Missouri state senator and state representative have introduced similar measures that they believe will have the same effect and will pass court muster.
As a little background, the law, introduced and passed in response to several anticipated bills that would be overreach on Second Amendment freedoms during the early days of the Biden Administration, forbade police from enforcing federal gun laws that didn’t have an equivalent state law. Law enforcement agencies with officers who knowingly enforced federal gun laws without equivalent state laws faced a fine of $50,000 per violating officer.
At the time, Gov. Parson said the unique law “draws a line in the sand and demonstrates our commitment to reject any attempt by the federal government to circumvent the fundamental right Missourians have to keep and bear arms to protect themselves and their property.”
The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Missouri in February 2022, arguing that the law obstructed cooperation between federal and state governments. A lower court ruled the bill unconstitutional, citing the Constitution’s supremacy clause that prioritizes federal law above state law.
On appeal, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld the ruling. At the time, Chief Judge Steven Colloton wrote in the ruling: “A State cannot invalidate federal law to itself. Missouri does not seriously contest these bedrock principles of our constitutional structure.”
One of the new measures, Senate Bill 23 by Sen. Rick Brattin, would have much the same effect. But Sen. Brattin said it is written so it will pass court muster this time.
Sen. Brattin told the Senate Transportation, Infrastructure and Public Safety Committee that the new version is a “reshuffling” of the bill to put it in accordance with the parameters of the Eighth Circuit Court’s ruling. The new version presents updated language in the bill’s statement of purpose and removes explicit references to federal agencies, centering the bill instead on state and local offices.
“This isn’t coming and reinventing the wheel,” Sen. Brattin told the committee. “This is just clarifying and making it in line with what the Eighth Courts have done.”
A companion bill in the Missouri House of Representatives, House Bill 1175 by Rep. Bill Hardwick, emphasizes similar points and also considers the circuit court’s objections to the earlier law.
“This is a proposal I have to kind of address what the Eighth Circuit had held and then reenact the substantive provision at the heart of the Second Amendment Preservation Act,” Rep. Hardwick said.
Of course, anti-gunners in the media were quick to attack the measure after its introduction. A headline in the Columbia Missourian crowed, “Senate bill attempts again to undermine federal gun laws.”
Ultimately, it’s likely the state legislature will pass one of the bills and send it to Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe for consideration. If signed into law, it probably won’t take long for anti-gun organizations to rush back to the courtroom in protest.
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