This year’s Missouri legislative session has seen nearly 100 gun rights bills filed. But the most popular topic in firearms legislation has already been debated and made law, at least temporarily.
The Second Amendment Preservation Act (SAPA) was passed in 2021 but was struck down as unconstitutional in 2024.
SAPA declared that any federal laws that restrict the manufacture, ownership or use of firearms were invalid in Missouri. Any state employee found to be enforcing these invalid laws would have been subject to a fine of $50,000.
Republicans have now brought the controversial law back for another try.
Battlefield Republican Senator Eric Burlison said he first introduced SAPA to protect against the possibility of any gun control measures passed by the Biden administration, which was newly-elected at the time.
In 2023, Burlison told conservative TV network OAN the bill was also aimed to keep local law enforcement focused on state issues.
“We want those law enforcement officials focused on actual crime," Burlison said in the OAN interview. "We don’t need them commandeered by Joe Biden and whatever flavor of the month that he has to pass some gun grabbing rule.”
The Biden-era Justice Department sued Missouri in 2022 to prohibit further implementation of the law. The DOJ opposed the law for hindering cooperation between state and federal law enforcement.
This was the third lawsuit brought against SAPA since its passage.
In 2023, a U.S. District Court ruled the law unconstitutional for attempting to nullify federal gun control laws within the state. A federal appeals court upheld this ruling in 2024, in effect voiding the original SAPA.
Now, it is once again being taken up by state lawmakers.
After an attempt to renew the bill last year, the current legislative session now has multiple bills branded as “SAPA 2.0.” Most aim to keep the sentiment of the original but correct the unconstitutional language.
The new bills strike language about voiding federal gun laws in Missouri and emphasize that law enforcement has no authority to assist with carrying out federal laws seen as infringements on Missourians' gun rights.
After being voided in court, federal gun laws can no longer be considered invalid. The newest iteration of SAPA, however, just directs state officials not to enforce these laws.
Under the proposed legislation, federal law still stands as paramount in Missouri, but state officials would not have to enforce it.
Ash Grove Republican Mike Moon compared the changes in his new bill to correcting essay edits from a college professor.
“There have been times where I have received a paper and not really wanting to rewrite the whole thing, and the professor didn’t really have that intent," Moon said. "They merely wanted me to correct what was redlined.”
University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor Allen Rostron said legislators have shifted focus from federal laws to preventing state law enforcement from assisting federal forces.
"The 2021 version of the Second Amendment Preservation Act was struck down because it tried to declare that certain federal gun laws might be just invalid, and they can't do that," Rostron said.
But some of the new bills have the same problem as the original law, Rostron said.
"HB3070— it's not just saying that Missouri officials won't help enforce federal laws," he said. "It's saying no one can enforce those laws."
Even bills that appear to fix unconstitutional language have sparked pushback.
Some reintroduce the $50,000 fine police departments could face for enforcing certain federal laws. As in the original SAPA, citizens could also sue law enforcement agencies if they feel like their gun rights have been overstepped.
Chris DiGiuseppe, Lake Saint Louis police chief and founding member of the Missouri Law Enforcement Legislative Coalition, said the ability to respond to certain threats will suffer if collaboration between state and federal efforts is forced to stop.
"Certain police departments had to also pull off their drug task forces, cyber crimes task forces— any kind of federal task force that we use to arrest or take down violent criminals," DiGiuseppe said.
This most recent attempt to renew SAPA comes as gun control groups consistently rank Missouri among the bottom states for gun law strength.
WashU law professor Gregory Magarian said Second Amendment right aren't in danger in Missouri.
"The citizens of Missouri don't need the Second Amendment to protect them from state level gun regulations because the state government doesn't want to regulate guns," Magarian said. "We’re really not talking about the Second Amendment."
SAPA and the discourse around it are largely optics and performance, he said.
"When a state does something like this, keeps fighting about something that has been declared manifestly unconstitutional, the state isn't legislating in order to accomplish something concrete," Magarian said. "It’s rhetoric."
Of the ten SAPA 2.0 bills under review in the Missouri legislature, two Senate bills are scheduled for floor debate — the furthest any such legislation has ever progressed. A third bill has been heard in committee.
