When Moniteau County Sheriff Tony Wheatley was informed that the Missouri House passed a bill last week that bans local police from enforcing federal gun laws, he didn’t feel good about it.
“It's going to cause a headache for every law enforcement agency in the state,” Wheatley said.
Approval of the Second Amendment Preservation Act, also known as House Bill 85, was intended to thwart Democratic President Joe Biden’s proposed gun restrictions.
“It was a knee-jerk reaction and I think they did it to send a message to the federal government because everybody has been talking about President Biden taking away all their firearms but realistically that can never happen,” Wheatley told the St. Louis Record.
Biden campaigned on a platform, which included a promise to enable courts to withdraw firearms from people who are a danger to themselves and others, according to media reports.
“The federal government doesn't have the manpower or the resources to even attempt that and without the help of local law enforcement, there's no way that they could ever enforce that,” Wheatley said. “Speaking for sheriffs in Missouri, I can't think of any sheriff who's going to assist the federal government in achieving that because we're all pro-Second Amendment.”
What displeases Wheatley is that House Bill 85 bans state law enforcement from working on any type of investigation with the federal government.
“We rely on them to prosecute more heinous crimes involving firearms and drugs and it's going to put a stop to that,” Wheatley said. “Those resources will be gone. We'll have to prosecute everything at the state level and the problem with that is in Missouri there is no truth in sentencing.”
Truth in sentencing is when a convict is required to serve their entire sentence, not released early on good behavior.
“They are only serving about one month per year of their sentence and then the Department of Corrections is placing them on parole and turning them right back out on the streets for local law enforcement to deal with,” Wheatley said. “Most of the time they re-offend.”
The Second Amendment Preservation Act is now pending with the Missouri Senate.
“We want Truth in Sentencing set up in a way that the sentence can be controlled more or less on the local level so that once they are sentenced, the DOC will actually hold them on that charge in prison without taking it upon themselves to just release them back whenever they want,” Wheatley added.