Why GOP-Led States Are Banning the Police From Enforcing Federal Gun Laws - Yahoo News

Missouri is the latest state to throw down a challenge to the enforcement of federal firearms laws as Republicans seek to thwart President Biden’s gun control proposals.

Missouri has become the latest state to throw down a broad challenge to the enforcement of federal firearms laws, as Republican-controlled state legislatures intensify their fierce political counterattack against President Biden’s gun control proposals.

At least eight other states — Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia — have taken similar action this year, passing laws of varying strength that discourage or prohibit the enforcement of federal gun statutes by state and local agents and officers.

They said the state would “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.”.

In interviews, the sponsors of the bill in the Missouri House and Senate acknowledged that the law would most likely have little immediate effect on the current operations of local and state police agencies, since there is presently little difference between state and federal gun laws in Missouri.

There would be no change to the federal requirement for background checks before buying guns from licensed firearms dealers, they said, and local police officers could still aid in federal gun law enforcement operations as long as the person being targeted was also violating a state law.

Critics say the concept enshrined in the new Missouri law and others like it — state laws that attempt to undermine federal ones — is a legally shaky but politically potent strategy deployed in the past in the South to resist antislavery and civil rights laws.

McCreery said, and could make local law enforcement officials “think twice” before fully cooperating with federal law enforcement agencies on, for example, a gun trafficking case being investigated under a federal firearms law that was more stringent than Missouri’s laws.

Boynton, an assistant attorney general who leads the Justice Department’s civil division, wrote to Missouri officials asking them to clarify several aspects of the law by Friday, including whether it was intended to block the use of the national background check system or to prevent local police officers from asking federal agents to trace a gun.

In their response, Governor Parson and the attorney general said they were not trying to nullify federal laws but were instead keeping local police officers from being used to enforce those laws.

The bill’s supporters said they were adopting a strategy that has been used frequently for liberal causes, such as “sanctuary city” laws that prohibit local officers from enforcing federal immigration laws.

Taylor and State Senator Eric Burlison said the Justice Department’s concerns were overblown, and that the bill would have little to no effect on local police officers’ participation in federal task forces.