COLUMBIA, Missouri — Federal appeals judges overturned their ruling a law of Missouri On Monday, police were banned from enforcing some federal gun laws.
The 8th U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Missouri’s law violated a part of the U.S. Constitution known as the Supremacy Clause, which states that federal laws take precedence over state laws.
“A state cannot invalidate federal law for itself,” wrote Eighth Circuit Chief Judge Steven Colloton in the ruling.
Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey said in a statement that his office was reviewing the decision. “I will always fight for the rights of Missourians under the Second Amendment,” he said.
The United States Department of Justice, which filed the lawsuit against Missouridid not want to comment.
Missouri’s law prohibited police from enforcing federal gun laws that did not have a state equivalent. Law enforcement agencies with officers who knowingly enforced federal gun laws without state equivalents were subject to a $50,000 fine for each offending officer.
Federal laws without comparable laws in Missouri include statutes regarding gun registration and tracking, and the possession of firearms by some domestic violence perpetrators.
The Missouri law has been stalled since 2023, when the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocked it while lower courts filed a lawsuit.
Conflict over Missouri law destroyed a crime-fighting partnership with U.S. prosecutors that Missouri’s former Republican attorney general, Eric Schmitt, now a U.S. senator, had vaunted for years. Under Schmitt’s Safer Streets Initiative, lawyers from his office were appointed as assistant U.S. attorneys to help prosecute violent crimes.
The Justice Department said the Missouri state forensic lab, which is run by the state highway patrol, refused to process evidence that could help with federal firearms prosecutions after the law took effect.
Republican lawmakers who helped pass the bill said they were motivated by the possibility of new gun restrictions under Democratic President Joe Biden, who signed the most sweeping gun violence law in decades.
The federal legislation stricter background checks for the youngest gun buyers, banning firearms from more domestic abusers and helping states pass “red flag” laws that make it easier for authorities to confiscate guns from people they consider dangerous.