The niceties of legal language prevented Chris Koster from coming right out and saying it but the message sent by Missouri's attorney general to state legislators today came through loud and clear, HB 436, Missouri's chest-thumping assertion that it will ignore federal gun laws, is nuts.
HB 436, which was vetoed by Gov. Jay Nixon and is likely to be restored during this month's veto session, is the latest in a long line of laws passed by the Missouri Legislature under the misguided notion that a wide majority of state residents want no regulation of weapons no matter what kind of weapons are being collected and no matter what the intent of those collecting the weapons might be.
What they want you to forget, and it is something the national media has not uncovered as it races to vilify the state about HB 436, is that the only time Missourians have been asked to vote on restrictions for gun owners, state voters, by a thin margin, favored the restrictions.
The vote was whether to allow concealed weapons and Missourians said no. The same people who are braying about how Gov. Nixon is going against the will of the people never say a word about how the legislature did just that when the very next year it passed a conceal-carry law buoyed by hefty contributions from the National Rifle Association and ready-made legislation crafted by the folks at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
After that, the legislature pushed for one gun law after another, pushing the theme that Missouri's gun owners were being deprived of their rights. There was the Castle Doctrine bill, which gave Missourians the right to blow away anyone who came on their property and threatened them, a right they had always had. Sen. Jack Goodman, R-Mt. Vernon, pushed that bill through even though he was never able to relate even one instance in which anyone was tried and convicted, or even arrested, for shooting someone who was threatening them on their own property. All the bill did was make it more difficult for those who are charged with investigating those crimes.
After that, came bills lowering the age on conceal-carry, allowing people to take their guns into public places, including churches. Arm the teachers, Rep. Mike Kelley, R-Lamar, said in a bill that did not pass. A part of Kelley's idea is included in HB 436.
To the people who are pushing this ever-increasing encroachment of gun rights on Missourians, nothing else is as important. First Amendment- that's for those wild-eyed liberals at the ACLU, now the Second Amendment- that's the one that the rugged individualists swear by.
And most likely they will continue to swear by it and ignore the common sense message Attorney General Koster delivered in the message he sent to the legislators today.
HB 436 would make it a crime to enforce federal gun laws in the Show-Me State and it forbids state law enforcement officers from working with the feds on any task forces in which the subject of gun laws may come up.
"No other state has taken the step of criminalizing the enforcement of federal gun laws," Koster wrote. "What is a state trooper to do if he or she comes across a felon who has sold guns to a group of illegal immigrants? As you are aware, the sale of guns to illegal immigrants is not addressed by Missouri statutes, but it is unlawful under federal law.By enacting subsection 5, the General Assembly will make it unlawful for a state trooper to even refer the seller to federal prosecutors."
Koster also noted that a provision of the law that allows criminals "to sue police officers for enforcing the law is uncharted public policy." That is the attorney general's polite way of saying, "Are you kidding?"
That portion of the law, Koster wrote, "will have a chilling effect on a police officer's conduct during a routine traffic stop.When a police officer in the city of St. Louis recovers a fully automatic machine gun from a drug dealer's car, should the matter no longer be sent to the U. S. Attorney's office because the Federal Gun Control Act of 1934 outlawed the weapon?"
Koster said he did not think that portion of the bill would be struck down by higher court, "but I believe I speak for the majority of Missouri's law enforcement officials when I say that subjecting every police officer, police department,, and prosecutor to a civil lawsuit for doing their jobs is a bewildering and discouraging decision."
Koster concluded his message with the clear statement that "nullification of federal law is unlawful," and attached a highlighted copy of the U. S. Supreme Court's Cooper v. Aaron decision which prevented the Arkansas state legislature from blocking enforcement of federal law desegregating Little Rock Central High School.
Koster asked the legislators to read the opinion or "at least take time to read the highlighted portions."
The attorney general is probably expecting a bit too much from our elected officials, in his hope that a jolt of common sense will make them rethink the dangerous course on which they have embarked.
It is much easier for our representatives and senators to cry out against the federal government "taking our guns" and criticize those noted "liberals" like Jay Nixon and Chris Koster who think HB 436 is a dangerous waste of the taxpayers' time and money.
One of the most controversial gun laws passed in the U. S. has been the "Stand Your Ground" law in Florida. Missouri's legislators bring whole new meaning to that phrase. No matter how overwhelming the logic is that HB 436 is a deeply flawed, dangerous, and unconstitutional bill, the odds are our legislators are going to stand their ground and then brag about what a great victory they have won for Missourians.
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