JEFFERSON CITY, Missouri (KCTV) — A federal appeals court ruled Monday that a Missouri state law declaring certain federal gun ownership laws “invalid” is unconstitutional.

The law, known as the Second Amendment Preservation Act, was signed by Governor Mike Parson in 2021. It cites several federal regulations on gun sales, ownership and taxation as infringements on the Second Amendment rights of Missouri citizens.

Under this law, Missouri recognizes the federal government’s right to “regulate commerce,” but states that this right does not extend to regulating gun sales or what “law-abiding, sane citizens of Missouri may purchase, sell, barter, or otherwise possess…”

“The people of the several States have delegated to Congress the power to “regulate commerce with foreign countries and among the several States and with Indian tribes,” but “regulation of commerce” does not include the power to restrict the right of citizens to keep and bear arms for the defense of their families, neighbors, persons, or property, or to prescribe what kinds of arms and accessories law-abiding, sane Missourians may buy, sell, barter, or otherwise possess within the boundaries of this State.”

— Second Amendment Preservation Act

The law set the precedent that any state or local official who attempted to “knowingly enforce” federal gun laws that they deemed to be in violation could be fined up to $50,000. It also declared all laws violating those laws, “whether past, present, or future,” to be “void within this State.”

The verdict

In 2022, a year after Parsons signed the law, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of Missouri, arguing that the law exceeded the authority of a state.

In March 2023, a federal judge ruled that the law was unconstitutional.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey vowed to fight back. His statement on X said, among other things: “We are prepared to defend this law before the Supreme Court and expect a better result in the Eighth Circuit.”

However, on August 26, 2024, the Eighth Circuit Court dismissed Missouri’s appeal, ruling: “We agree that the United States has standing. Because the statute purports to invalidate federal laws in violation of the Supremacy Clause, we affirm the judgment.”

In its appeal, the State of Missouri argued that the United States was not “entitled to (Missouri’s) assistance in enforcing the federal law.” The Eighth Circuit responded that when Missouri began enforcing the law, the United States was “injured by the deprivation of state resources,” but that was not the same as being entitled to those resources.

The law was also upheld as unconstitutional, the court ruled, because “a state cannot invalidate a federal law in its own right.”

Politicians react

Bailey posted on X that he will “always fight for Missourians’ Second Amendment rights.”

Kansas City Major Quinton Lucas celebrated the decision and released a statement on X saying he was grateful for the region’s “strong courts.”

“Two years ago, Missouri passed an unconstitutional law claiming to override federal gun laws. The law was struck down today in a federal appeals court.”

Missouri faces many challenges. I hope the Attorney General and other state leaders will actually address the crime issues to make us safer, rather than undermining the efforts of federal and local law enforcement officers who work every day to protect us from gun violence.”

“Fortunately, we have strong courts in this region that have repeatedly stopped unlawful actions by the state of Missouri. I am saddened that our state has devoted the time and energy of many in our legal system to this clearly unconstitutional effort.”

—Mayor Quinton Lucas

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