After a federal court threw out Missouri's Second Amendment Preservation Act for, among other things, violating the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, lawmakers in Jefferson City are attempting to give the law a makeover. This year's version of SAPA, which is currently making its way through the state Senate, offers several technical changes to the original statute, but the intent is still the same: to prohibit local and state law enforcement from working with their federal counterparts to enforce federal gun laws.
Though the bill's language notes that SAPA still allows for law enforcement to cooperate with federal agencies on investigations that could result in federal charges "so long as such weapons violations are merely ancillary to such prosecution", many law enforcement officials in the Show Me State are objecting to the legislation and arguing it will aid criminals far more than lawful gun owners.
“I think it’s anti-law enforcement,” said Ellisville Police Chief Steve Lewis. “It’s bad legislation for law enforcement in that we believe it restricts law enforcement’s ability to assist federal task force partners with the seizure of weapons from bad people.”
On April 14, representatives from police departments across the state testified against the proposed law. The group included police from Branson, Rolla, Versailles, Columbia and others.
Passed out of the Missouri House in March, the bill seeks to enact a new Second Amendment Preservation Act. The original law was passed in 2021 and prohibited Missouri police from enforcing federal gun laws and allowed citizens to file $50,000 lawsuits against agencies for doing so.
The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Bill Hardwick, R-Dixon, called the new version of the law an “affirmation” of Missouri’s commitment to the Second Amendment. He said the law directs Missouri police to enforce Missouri laws.
The new bill also sidesteps issues the courts had with language that made federal gun laws illegal by instead using words that direct Missouri police officers to simply not enforce federal gun laws.
“If there’s a federal gun registry, state police should not enforce that,” Hardwick said on the House floor. “If there’s a federal rule about the amount of bullets that you can have in your home, the state police should not enforce that.”
Does the chief have a point? Under SAPA, the Ellisville Police Department probably wouldn't be allowed to assist the ATF or any other federal agency in investigating or arresting someone for engaging in a straw purchase or selling a gun with an obliterated serial number. But if the ATF or DEA investigation centered instead around other unlawful activity, and violations of federal gun laws were discovered in the course of that investigation, SAPA would still allow the officers under Lewis's command to cooperate with their federal counterparts without fear of being sued in civil court.
As Hardwich said on the House floor, the intention here isn't to hamstring local police, but to provide additional safeguards for lawful gun owners in the state of Missouri. That being said, the legislation still suffers a defects that could render it just as invalid as the first SAPA law to take effect.
Section 1.430 of the revised SAPA legislation states that "All federal acts, laws, executive orders, administrative orders, rules, and regulations, regardless of whether they were enacted before or after the provisions of sections 1.410 to 1.485, that infringe on the people's right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and Article I, Section 23 of the Constitution of Missouri shall be invalid to this state, shall not be recognized by this state, shall be specifically rejected by this state, and shall not be enforced by this state."
That's all well and good, but who determines whether or not a particular law is an infringement? Does this mean that unless or until SCOTUS weighs in on a particular federal statute it should be considered valid in the state? And if that is the case, then is SAPA even needed? After all, if the Supreme Court declares a particular law unconstitutional, the federal government won't be enforcing it going forward, so there'd be no need to prohibit police in Missouri from working with the feds to enforce it either. If, on the other hand, any new federal gun laws are automatically deemed an infringement that is invalidated by the state of Missouri, the Second SAPA law is going to run headlong into the same Supremacy Clause issues that doomed its predecessor.
I agree with the sentiment behind SAPA, but I'm not convinced that the current language will fare ay better in the courts than the original language that was deemed unconstitutional. It would probably be better to lay out specific areas of federal law where the state doesn't want to see any cooperation between Missouri police and federal agencies like enforcement of NFA laws solely regarding possession of restricted items or aiding or assisting the apprehension and arrest of non-violent felons in possession of a firearm. That would avoid any sticky questions about when a particular law becomes an infringement, and it would also make the Supremacy Clause argument moot. Missouri doesn't need to declare any federal law invalid in order to refuse to assist in its enforcement. Lawmakers don't have to provide a reason at all if they don't want to. Declaring that cooperating in enforcement of federal statues X, Y, and Z is all they need to do, and frankly, if they go much further than that they're just opening SAPA up to another court challenge... and likely, another legal defeat as well.
