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U.S. Appeals Court Shoots Down Missouri's Second Amendment Preservation Act

In a lawsuit brought by the United States against Missouri, its Governor and Attorney General, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the District Court’s invalidation of Missouri's Second Amendment Preservation Act (SAPA) as unconstitutional. See U.S. v. Missouri, U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit, August 26, 2024 --- F.4th ---- 2024 WL 3932470. 


The SAPA was enacted in 2021 as Sections 1.410 to 1.485 RSMo. Among other things, the SAPA purported to invalidate “within the borders of” Missouri a general list of federal “acts, laws, executive orders, administrative orders, rules, and regulations” that the Missouri General Assembly “considered infringements on the people's right to keep and bear arms, as guaranteed by Amendment II of the Constitution of the United States and Article I, Section 23 of the Constitution of Missouri.” 


Troublesome to local law enforcement were the provisions that gave standing to private persons to sue a municipality to enforce the Act even if the person was not involved in whatever situation the litigant claimed to be violation of the SAPA. Also worrisome, was the SAPA’s creation of a cause of action against “[a]ny political subdivision or law enforcement agency” that either (1) “employs a law enforcement officer who acts knowingly ... to violate the provisions of section 1.450,” or (2) “knowingly employs an individual acting or who previously acted as an official, agent, employee, or deputy of the government of the United States, or otherwise acted under the color of federal law within the borders of this state, who has knowingly ... [e]nforced,” “attempted to enforce,” or “[g]iven material aid and support ... to enforce any of the infringements identified in section 1.420.”  §§ 1.460.1, 1.470.1. Each violation of the Act is punishable by a $50,000 penalty.  Prevailing parties, “other than the state of Missouri or any political subdivision of the state,” could recover reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs. §§ 1.460.2, 1.470.3. 


In its lawsuit, the Department of Justice alleged that the SAPA “impeded the federal government's ability to enforce federal law by causing state officials to withdraw from joint task forces with federal law enforcement, by disrupting information sharing between state and federal officers, and by causing confusion about the status of federal firearm regulations in the State.” 


In striking the SAPA down, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals cited the Supremacy Clause, i.e., that federal law is “the supreme Law of the Land, ... any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.” U.S. Const. art. VI, cl. 2. This the Court stated was a “bedrock principle” of our constitutional structure--“a State cannot invalidate federal law to itself.”  


No word yet if the State of Missouri will try to appeal to the Supreme Court.

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