On Friday, the United States Supreme Court refused to reinstate a state law in Missouri that barred state and local law enforcement from enforcing federal gun control laws.
According to The New York Times, the court’s order did not give reasons. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented without an explanation.
Reportedly, the law, known as the Second Amendment Preservation Act, was enacted in 2021. The provisions of the law (via The New York Times):
One declared various kinds of federal laws — including ones requiring the registration of weapons and making gun dealers keep records — to be “infringements on the people’s right to keep and bear arms.”
A second provision prohibited the state from hiring former federal employees who had enforced such laws or given “material aid and support” to efforts to enforce them.
A third allowed citizens to sue local police agencies for $50,000 for every incident in which they could prove that their right to bear arms had been violated. That last mechanism seemed to have been inspired by a novel Texas abortion law that provided bounties in lawsuits against abortion providers.
Reportedly, a federal judge nominated by former President Barack Obama blocked the law in March after the Biden administration challenged the law.
“If the United States may sue any state or state official who expresses a contested view of the Constitution, then law professors, state lawyers and all government officials have cause for serious concern,” the state’s application reportedly said. “Every legislator has a duty to comply with the Constitution, which necessarily requires interpreting it.”
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The Biden administration reportedly argued that the law was “patently unconstitutional.”
“The Missouri legislature is free to express its opinions about the Second Amendment, and it is also free to prohibit state and local officials from assisting in the enforcement of federal law,” Biden’s solicitor general, Elizabeth B. Prelogar, stated. “But it is not free to purport to nullify federal statutes; to direct state officials and courts to treat those statutes as invalid and to protect against their enforcement; or to regulate and discriminate against federal officials enforcing those statutes.”
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