The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a petition from the Missouri attorney general to reverse a lower court ruling which blocked a Missouri law prohibiting local law enforcement agencies from enforcing federal gun control laws.
As noted by the Associated Press, the law had initially been ruled unconstitutional, but was allowed to remain in effect pending appeal. The appeals court did block the law, and the state petition the high court to let the law remain in effect “while the court fight plays out,” the AP and St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Under the law, according to CNN, violators would have faced fines up to $50,000 “for assisting with the enforcement of federal laws that Missouri’s General Assembly believes may be unconstitutional.”
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey contended that the federal government lacked “standing” in the case as a plaintiff. The argument didn’t wash, however.
According to the Washington Times, the Second Amendment Preservation Act (SAPA) was enacted in 2021. At that time, the newspaper said, the state Assembly adopted the law because members felt the federal government had adopted gun control laws that were unconstitutional.
Back in March, U.S. District Judge Brian Wimes—a Barack Obama appointee—ruled the Missouri law was “invalidated as unconstitutional in its entirety.” The state quickly appealed.
The Post-Dispatch reported that AG Bailey “downplayed the courts’ rejection.”
“This was a purely procedural matter,” an unidentified Bailey spokesperson told the Post-Dispatch. “We look forward to defending Missourians’ Second Amendment rights at the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.”
It is not unusual for the Supreme Court to decline intervening in a case that apparently has not run its full course in the lower courts.
The government argued that the Missouri law is unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause.
