The Justice Department is suing Missouri over the state’s far-reaching gun law, which discourages local officials from enforcing federal firearms measures, reported The New York Times.
The law, known as the Second Amendment Preservation
Act, is among the most severe state gun-rights bills in recent years. At least
eight other states, including West Virginia, have recently passed
similar measures, but Missouri’s has by far the sharpest teeth: A provision
allows citizens to sue any local police agency for $50,000 for every incident
in which they can prove that their right to bear firearms was violated,
provided they were not flouting state law.
The department argued that the Missouri law, rammed
through the state’s Republican-led legislature last spring, violates the
supremacy clause of the Constitution, which prohibits states from overriding
federal statute.
“This act impedes criminal law enforcement
operations in Missouri,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a
statement after the suit was filed in Kansas City federal court. “The United
States will work to ensure that our state and local law enforcement partners
are not penalized for doing their jobs to keep our communities safe.”
Biden administration officials had threatened to
file the lawsuit for months. They first outlined their stance in support of a
state case brought last year by local officials in the St. Louis area who
claimed that the law hindered them from addressing the recent spike in gun
violence.
The Missouri law, Justice Department lawyers said in
the complaint, has already “had a harmful impact on public safety efforts
within the state” by prompting local and state officials to withdraw from
state-federal task forces and sever their connections to vital crime and
ballistics databases maintained by federal agencies.
The suit came two days after lawyers in the Missouri
case began wrapping up their closing arguments before the state Supreme Court,
and Republicans were quick to suggest the Justice Department’s suit was
intended to pre-empt a possible loss in the state court.
“After their disastrous arguments in the Missouri
Supreme Court last week, the Biden Department of Justice has now filed yet
another partisan lawsuit that seeks to attack Missourians’ Second Amendment
rights,” said Attorney General Eric Schmitt of Missouri, a Republican who
supported passage of the law.
“Make no mistake, the law is on our side in this
case, and I intend to beat the Biden administration in court,” added Mr.
Schmitt, who recently joined a crowded field of conservatives running for the
Senate seat soon to be vacated by the longtime senator Roy Blunt.
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But the measure has drawn sharp criticism from many
law enforcement officials of all political stripes — including Second Amendment
purists, who say it endangers public safety.
“It’s just a terribly written law,” Sheriff Brad
Cole, a Republican from Christian County in the rural Ozarks region of the
state, said last year, echoing the sentiments of other local officials.
In an affidavit filed in the state case in August, the
special agent in charge of the Kansas City field division of the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, reported that nearly a quarter of
state and local enforcement officials who worked directly with the agency — 12
of 53 officers — had withdrawn from joint collaborations.
In addition, state and local agencies have begun to
restrict federal access to investigative resources they have historically
shared, including the Missouri Information Analysis Center, a state crime
database, and the Kansas City Police Department’s records system, he said.
The bill’s supporters have argued that the new law
is constitutional and does not prohibit federal agents from operating in
Missouri. They have argued it only blocks state and local law enforcement
officials from working on such cases without explicit proof that their actions
will not contribute to the confiscation of guns from law-abiding citizens.
Gov. Mike Parson, a former sheriff, has suggested
that the legislature should revisit the law to address the objections of law
enforcement officials.
The Justice Department said it had filed the suit to
assert a larger constitutional principle.
“A state cannot simply declare federal laws
invalid,” said Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil
Division.
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