Americans are generally accustomed to a certain kind of debate over gun policy. The debate nearly always goes like this: Democrats and their allies offer proposals intended to reduce gun violence, polls show broad support for the ideas, and Republicans and their allies derail the proposals.
Last year, however, a very different kind of debate over gun policy unfolded in the great state of Missouri.
As regular readers may recall, it was eight months ago when Republican Gov. Mike Parson appeared at a gun store to sign a bill designed to discourage enforcement of federal gun laws. In fact, the state measure empowered private citizens to sue local police departments for $50,000 for incidents in which the police enforced laws that infringed on the Second Amendment.
The same GOP law said the state wouldn’t enforce federal gun laws that exceed state gun laws.
If you’re thinking, “Wait, states can’t do that,” then you agree with the Justice Department, which filed an important new lawsuit yesterday. The Associated Press reported:
The Department of Justice on Wednesday sued Missouri over a contested new law banning local police from enforcing federal gun laws just days after pulling out of a state crime-fighting partnership. The Justice Department has said the law, which declares “invalid” federal gun regulations that don’t have an equivalent in Missouri law, has scared police departments away from helping the federal government fight violent crime.
“This act impedes criminal law enforcement operations in Missouri,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a written statement. “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.”
Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division added, “A state cannot simply declare federal laws invalid.”
Circling back to our earlier coverage, it’s worth emphasizing that in practical terms, the Missouri law hasn’t yet touched off any kind of constitutional crisis. As even proponents of the policy in Missouri have conceded, there are few real differences, at least right now, between state and federal gun laws.
What Missouri Republicans are apparently concerned about is federal gun policies that may exist in the future. It’s those laws that GOP policymakers in the state are eager to ignore, Constitutional Law 101 notwithstanding.
The underlying argument is generally known as “nullification”: It’s an idea that states can simply nullify national laws that states don’t like and don’t want to follow. For many years, the idea was espoused by opponents of federal anti-slavery laws and civil rights statutes. Indeed, there was a rather spirited debate in the mid-19th century over whether states could choose to ignore federal laws, and the dispute was resolved by the U.S. Civil War. Nullification advocates lost. But the matter isn’t entirely philosophical. Missouri hasn’t actively ignored any federal laws, but as the Justice Department noted in its announcement yesterday, the state law — known as H.B. 85 — has had some practical effects. The complaint alleges that the restrictions imposed by H.B. 85 have hindered cooperation and other activities that assist federal, state, and local law enforcement efforts. Federal law enforcement agencies within the state report that enforcement of federal firearms laws in Missouri has grown more difficult since H.B. 85 became effective. The penalties associated with H.B. 85 have prompted state and local agencies and individuals within those entities to withdraw support for federal law enforcement efforts, including by not sharing critical data used to solve violent crimes and withdrawing from joint federal task forces…. Dozens of state and local officers have resigned from federal joint-task forces in the state as a result of the law.
The federal case was filed in Kansas City. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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