COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri's Republican governor and attorney general said in a defiant letter to the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday that they stand by the state's new law that would ban police from enforcing federal gun rules.
Click here to read the full letter
Gov. Mike Parson and Attorney General Eric Schmitt wrote that they still plan to enforce the new law, which Parson signed Saturday. The measure penalizes local police departments if their officers enforce federal gun laws.
Schmitt and Parson wrote that they will “fight tooth and nail” to defend the right to own guns as spelled out in the state constitution and the new law.
“We will not tolerate any attempts by the federal government to deprive Missourians of this critical civil right,” they wrote.
In a letter sent Wednesday night and obtained by The Associated Press, Justice Department officials pointed out that federal law trumps state law under the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.
Brian Boynton, an acting assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, said in the letter that Missouri's law threatens to disrupt the working relationship between federal and local law enforcement and noted that the state receives federal grants and technical assistance.
Missouri’s new law would subject law enforcement agencies with officers who knowingly enforce federal gun laws to a fine of about $50,000 per violating officer.
Boynton said Missouri’s law “conflicts with federal firearms laws and regulation” and that federal law would supersede the state’s new statute. He said federal agents and the U.S. attorney’s offices in the state would continue to enforce all federal firearms laws and regulations. He asked that Parson and Schmitt clarify the law and how it would work in a response by Friday.
Schmitt is running for U.S. Senate.
Republican lawmakers who pushed Missouri’s new law said they were motivated by the potential for more restrictive gun laws under Democratic President Joe Biden.
Republican Sen. Eric Burlison, of Battlefield, helped pass the bill and said he's not aware of any federal gun laws currently enforced that are not also illegal under state law. But he said the legislation, HB 85, will prevent local law enforcement from enforcing any “wild ideas” later enacted under Biden.
“If this administration wants to go down a path of enforcing unconstitutional gun grabs, then our law enforcement officers, through HB 85, will not be lifting a finger to help them," Burlison said.
State Democrats have argued the law is unconstitutional and will likely get overturned if challenged in court.
Similar bills were introduced in more than a dozen other states this year, including Alabama, Arkansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Wyoming, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, West Virginia and Iowa. In Texas, the governor has called for the state to become a so-called Second Amendment sanctuary.
Several states passed similar laws under then-president Barack Obama, though judges have ruled against them.
Prosecutors in Missouri's attorney general's office have withdrawn from nearly two dozen federal drug, gun and carjacking cases in St. Louis, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. They had been working with federal counterparts as part of the Safer Streets initiative that Schmitt touted in 2019.
Schmitt spokesman Chris Nuelle said in a statement that the Attorney General's Office has been replacing prosecutors “as is the natural course in the Safer Streets Initiative.”
“We have been and continue to be committed to fighting violent crime, and we’re also committed to protecting law abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights,” Nuelle said.
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Governor Mike Parson on Thursday sent a letter to President Biden’s Department of Justice fighting back against potential federal overreach and encroachment on Missourians’ Second Amendment rights, according to a statement from Parson's office.
Click here to read the full letter
“Missourians’ and Americans’ Second Amendment rights are enshrined in the Constitution – I will defend those rights at every turn,” said Attorney General Schmitt. “Our letter to Biden’s Department of Justice sends a clear message: we will fight any attempts from the federal government to encroach on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.”
“The Second Amendment Preservation Act is about protecting law-abiding Missourians against government overreach and unconstitutional federal mandates," Governor Parson said. "We will reject any attempt by the federal government to circumvent the fundamental right Missourians have to keep and bear arms to protect themselves and their property. Throughout my career, I have always stood for the Constitution and our Second Amendment rights, and that will not change today or any day."
The letter, which is in response to the Department of Justice’s Wednesday letter to both the Attorney General and the Governor on the recently passed and signed Second Amendment Preservation Act, begins with, “Your letter purporting to ask for clarification of this important legislation, which was purposefully leaked to the news media, is riddled with a misunderstanding of the law and falsehoods. We will not stand by while the federal government tries to tell Missourians how to live our lives. Missouri is not attempting to nullify federal law. Instead, Missouri is defending its people from federal government overreach by prohibiting state and local law enforcement agencies from being used by the federal government to infringe Missourians’ right to keep and bear arms.”
The letter argues that, under the Second and Tenth Amendments, the right to keep and bear arms is inalienable, and that Missouri has the right to refuse to enforce unconstitutional infringements by the federal government. The letter states, “Likewise, the Tenth Amendment directly limits the Federal Government’s ability to shift the balance of power within the federal system away from the States… the State of Missouri has every right under our system of government and the Tenth Amendment to place limitations on what state and local officials may do.”
The letter also notes the Department of Justice’s June 16 letter conflicts with their own policy toward “sanctuary cities,” stating, “On his first day in office, President Biden rescinded President Trump’s executive order that prohibited federal grant awards to sanctuary jurisdictions that refused to cooperate with the federal government to enforcement immigration laws. In April, the Office of Justice Programs reportedly repealed the Department of Justice’s policy that required recipients of a law enforcement grant to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a condition of their funding… President Biden and the Department of Justice have decided to reward states and cities that refuse to cooperate with enforcing constitutional immigration laws that protect our citizens against foreign threats, but now they attack Missouri for refusing to cooperate with enforcing unconstitutional gun confiscation laws that put our citizens in danger and degrade their rights.”
The letter ends with, “We will fight tooth and nail to defend the right to keep and bear arms protected by the Second Amendment, Article I, § 23 of the Missouri Constitution, and the Second Amendment Preservation Act. And we will not tolerate any attempt by the federal government to deprive Missourians of this critical civil right.