Cops in Missouri may resume enforcing some of the state’s gun laws after a court overturned a law that had prevented them from doing so.
On August 26, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a state law that had banned police from enforcing any federal gun laws that did not have a directly equivalent state law. If a police agency in the state continued to enforce those federal laws, the agency would be subject to a $50,000 fine for every officer who did so knowingly.
The law, passed in 2021, was called the Second Amendment Protection Act.
The 8th Circuit overturned the Missouri law on the grounds of the Constitution’s supremacy clause, which states that federal law overrides state law. Chief Judge Steven Colloton wrote in his opinion that a “state cannot invalidate federal law to itself.”
Colloton explained that the supremacy clause establishes that federal law is “the supreme law of the land,” and that contrary state laws are invalid. The clause elaborates, stating that “states are prohibited” from passing laws that are “repugnant to a law of the United States.”
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, responded to the ruling by saying his office was reviewing it. He added that he will “always fight” for the second amendment rights held by residents of the state.
There are several federal gun laws that do not have an equivalent in Missouri. These included rules on how guns have to be registered and tracked throughout their lifetimes, and bans on gun ownership by those who have been convicted of certain domestic violence offenses.
The ruling is a loss for Missouri, which had been able to convince other courts to uphold its law until the Supreme Court temporarily blocked it in 2023 while it was being debated by lower courts. The law had also caused the dissolution of a program that enabled cooperation between state cops and federal law enforcement agencies. The Safer Streets Initiative, begun by former MO Attorney General Eric Schmitt, deputized attorneys in the state AG’s office to act as U.S. attorney for the prosecution of certain crimes.
