Misouri Senate gun bill seeks to nullify federal laws

Missouri Senate leaders are revising a gun bill in hopes of supporting the Second Amendment, without putting local and state law enforcement officers in the difficult position of attempting to arrest federal agents.

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 Seven weeks after thwarting a veto override attempt on a highly publicized gun bill, a Missouri Senate leader put forth a pared-back proposal Thursday that still seeks to nullify some federal gun control laws but stops short of criminalizing federal agents.

Senate Majority Leader Ron Richard had pledged to work on a revised plan after he and Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey split from the rest of the Republican caucus to defeat a veto override attempt of the gun legislation in September. At the time, they cited concerns about the constitutionality of the bill.

The new draft still attempts to declare void any federal policies that “infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms,” but it deletes wording that could have allowed state misdemeanor charges to be filed against federal agents for attempting to enforce certain federal gun control laws.

It also limits the proposed circumstances in which people could sue police and prosecutors for enforcing those gun laws and drops a provision that could have subjected journalists to misdemeanor charges for publishing the identities of gun owners.

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