Missouri lawmakers’ latest attempt to bar state and local officials from helping enforce certain federal gun laws collapsed Wednesday in a House committee, defeated not only by Democrats but by Republicans who said the bill would hurt gun dealers, invite costly litigation and ignore the concerns of law enforcement.
The House General Laws Committee voted 9-3 against a bill aimed at reviving Missouri’s Second Amendment Preservation Act. The committee has 16 members — 11 Republicans and five Democrats — meaning the bill would have failed even if all four absent members had shown up.
The vote was a setback for a measure that has become a recurring cause for Missouri gun-rights activists. Since the original law passed in 2021, supporters have cast it as a bulwark against federal overreach, while opponents — including police chiefs, sheriffs, federal prosecutors and local officials — have argued it undermined cooperation with federal authorities and exposed local governments to costly lawsuits.
What made Wednesday’s defeat stand out was where the resistance came from.
State Rep. Mike Costlow, a Republican from Dardenne Prairie and a firearms dealer, said the bill was “absolutely not second amendment friendly,” despite its title.
In remarks before the vote, Costlow said the measure would create a conflict between state and federal law for gun dealers forced to choose between complying with federal law and risking liability under state law, or vice versa. He also took aim at the bill’s $50,000 civil penalty, arguing it would create a framework for people to exploit the Second Amendment for payouts at taxpayer expense.
Costlow accused outside groups of pressuring lawmakers to back a bill he said would do more to fuel a political narrative than protect gun rights.
Joining Costlow in publicly criticizing the bill was state Rep. Jamie Gragg, a Republican from Ozark, who said he had checked with local law enforcement in his district before the vote and came away convinced the bill did not have their support.
That opposition undercut the central argument from the bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Bill Hardwick of Dixon, that it was a narrower, more legally careful rewrite of a law courts already struck down.
At a hearing earlier this month, Hardwick told the committee he had removed language that sought to invalidate federal law while preserving what he described as its core protections. His bill would have barred state and local officials from enforcing certain federal firearm laws, including registration requirements, tracking of gun ownership and confiscation orders aimed at law-abiding citizens. It also would have kept the $50,000 civil penalty for violations.
Hardwick argued the proposal was based not on nullification but on the anti-commandeering doctrine that says the federal government cannot force state officers to carry out federal policy.
Supporters, including Aaron Dorr of the Missouri Firearms Coalition, said the bill would simply prevent the federal government from using Missouri police to enforce federal gun restrictions.
But opponents said that was not how the law worked in practice the first time around, and they warned it would not work now.
When originally enacted in 2021, the law declared a range of federal gun laws invalid in Missouri and threatened state and local agencies with lawsuits and $50,000 penalties for enforcing them. Law enforcement leaders warned it would chill cooperation with federal agencies, and the U.S. Department of Justice sued Missouri in 2022, arguing the state could not nullify federal law and that the measure was already disrupting gun-crime enforcement.
In 2023, U.S. District Judge Brian Wimes struck the law down as unconstitutional. The following year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit upheld that ruling, concluding Missouri may choose to withhold assistance from federal authorities but cannot do so by purporting to invalidate federal law. Last October, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Missouri’s appeal, effectively ending the state’s effort to save the 2021 version.
That did not end the legislative push.
Last year, the Missouri House passed another attempt to revive the law, but the effort stalled in the Senate after law enforcement groups again warned that the rewrite preserved many of the same practical and constitutional problems. This year’s bill was another try at threading the same needle: preserve the political appeal of the original law while cutting away enough language to survive in court.
In an interview Thursday morning, Hardwick said he is not giving up on the issue, even if his House bill is likely dead. Two Senate versions of the legislation, sponsored by GOP Sens. Rick Brattin and Mike Moon, are still alive. And if those efforts fail this year, he intends to keep pushing the issue if he wins the Missouri Senate seat he is seeking.
“I’m not going to give up,” Hardwick said. “This is an issue that is near and dear to me.”
This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent.
