The U.S. Supreme Court turned away what could have been a key gun rights case last week, and support for that move came from a surprising source.
Justices declined to hear arguments concerning Missouri’s Second Amendment Preservation Act (SAPA), which was passed to bar local and state authorities from coordinating with federal authorities on specific gun control cases.
Missouri’s legal battle over federal gun control began four years ago
The SAPA saga began in 2021 when Missouri lawmakers approved the bill and it was signed into law. The goal of its proponents was to stem the tide of anti-gun rights efforts coming from the administration at the time.
The administration struck back, and the Department of Justice sued to stop the law from being implemented. The government claimed SAPA directly contradicted the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which established that federal law supersedes state law.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals struck that law down, and the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023 refused to intervene.
The White House issued a surprising recommendation to SCOTUS
Missouri lawmakers did not back down, and earlier this year, they announced an updated SAPA that addressed the Eighth Circuit’s concerns. The case meandered back to the high court, which rejected it yet again last week.
The Trump Justice Department urged SCOTUS to refuse to take up the case, though it does not oppose all aspects of the potential law.
According to the measure, no federal statutes would be enforced in Missouri that were “forbidding the possession, ownership, use or transfer of a firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition by law-abiding citizens.”
Missouri lawmakers sought to draw a line around Second Amendment rights and prevent cooperation with what many considered to be federal overreach. The state could levy fines as high as $50,000 for willful violations of gun rights.
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