The Supreme Court has once again had to rule that Missouri is part of the United States.
A lower court had ruled as unconstitutional the legislature’s latest effort to say Missouri did not have to obey federal laws. In this case it was a 2021 law that prohibited local and state police officers from enforcing certain federal firearms restrictions.
It was a slam dunk by the court. Only former Missouri assistant attorney general Clarence Thomas thought the state had a great idea.
That great idea, given the haughty name of the Second Amendment Preservation Act gave citizens the right to sue local and state governments, agencies and agents that enforce federal gun laws that impose registration requirements, fees, and taxes, for as much as $50,000 for allegedly infringing on Second Amendment rights.
The Washington Post reported Friday that the Biden administration took the state to court. Our Attorney General, Andrew Bailey, suggested the federal government had no business suing the state because lawsuits could only be filed against state and local agencies. And he maintained, as backers of the law proclaimed in 2021 that the state has no responsibility to enforce federal law. He called the federal government arguments “aggressive and novel,” and railed against federal second-guessing state policies.
United States Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar asserted that the law hampered enforcement of federal laws, “including its ability to apprehend dangerous criminals.”
She also argued—as opponents argued when the law was passed—that the U. S. Constitution prohibits states from invalidating federal laws. Furthermore, she said, Missouri’s law says any federal employees who enforce the federal law in Missouri could never work for the state of Missouri after they leave federal employment.
Last March, a federal judge blocked enforcement of the law but damage already had been done.
The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has had a task force made up of federal, state and local authorities. But several of those state and local agencies quit feeding date into a national program that helps link evidence of crimes in Missouri with crimes elsewhere in the country.
The U. S. Marshalls Service said a lot of state and local officers stopped helping catch fugitives.
States have been trying to nullify federal laws since 1832. It hasn’t worked but the Missouri General Assembly is a low learner.
The issue originally arose with the passage of a strong tariff law in 1828. Southern states thought it put an unfair tax burden on their agricultural economy because the south lacked industry and had to import most of its manufactured goods. When the federal government under President Andrew Jackson did nothing to relieve that distress, radcals in the South Carolina argued that a state could declare any federal law it believed to be unconstitutional null and void and in 1832 adopted An Ordinance of Nullification that declared the 1828 tariff and a later one passed in 1832 were unenforceable in the state.
South Carolina prepared a military force to oppose any federal soldiers sent to enforce the tariffs. Congress passed the Force Bill in March of 1833 authorizing President Jackson to use military force against South Carolina. At the same time, Congress passed a new tariff that was a compromise South Carolina could accept.
A petulant South Carolina repealed its Nullification Ordinance.
Then it passed a measure nullifying the federal Force Bill, just to have the last word.
The issue of states’ rights, however, has never gone away. And the 2021 Second Amendment Preservation Act was the latest flareup of the issue in Missouri—at least that got legislative approval.
But don’t be surprised if somebody proposes something for the 2024 General Assembly that asserts this state can live apart from the United States Constitution if it disagrees with something in it.
(You can check out the “Blood Right” entry we posted on May 10 this year for another example of the legislature to ignore the Constitution of the United States. It was a gun issue, too.)