When Frontier Justice gun store and shooting range clients in Lee’s Summit inquire about the legal challenge against House Bill 85, which created the Second Amendment Preservation Act (SAPA), its CEO Michael Brown tells them not to worry.
“There are no laws on the books right now that violate any of my customer's rights so there's nothing to be concerned about,” Brown told the St. Louis Record.
As previously reported, SAPA prevents local law enforcement agencies from enforcing federal gun laws. Gov. Parson signed the bill, making it law, on June 12 at Frontier Justice gun shop, which Brown co-owns with his wife Bren.
“Faith, family, and freedom are on the front of every one of our buildings,” said Bren Brown, president of Frontier Justice. “It's really the position statement for our company in that those three things guide all of our decision-making. Freedom for us represents the firearm, the tools that law enforcement and veterans have used to protect our freedom, so we're very much in support of the Second Amendment Preservation Act, or we wouldn't have hosted the governor signing it at our location.”
SAPA assesses a $50,000 fine against state and local lawmen who enforce federal gun laws that differ from state law and SAPA also invalidates any federal laws that encroach upon the Second Amendment, according to media reports.
"I tell our clients that they need to pay attention to things that are happening like this and vote, get out and vote for the people who are making legislation that is affecting their rights now and into the future,” Bren Brown told the St. Louis Record. “A lot of Americans have gone to sleep at the wheel and assumed that things would just keep going and they didn't need to vote but every American needs to vote.”
St. Louis City and County sued the State of Missouri and Attorney General Eric Schmitt in Cole County Circuit Court alleging that HB 85 is unconstitutional.
Most recently, the Department of Justice intervened by filing a statement of interest asserting that SAPA is legally invalid and asking Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Richard Green to ban SAPA’s enforcement.
“The broader legal question is whether the federal government can overstep state’s rights when the people of Missouri have voted,” Michael Brown said. “SAPA has gone through and been approved by two houses and the executive branch of the state of Missouri.”
The DOJ further argued in its statement of interest that SAPA conflicts with the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause in which federal law trumps state law and prohibits states from overreaching unto the authority exercised by the federal government, according to NPR News.
“Their lawsuit really has no validity and it's interesting that they're trying to challenge that because the Democratic Party has supported this very idea of state's rights in the way they’ve dealt with illegal immigration in the state of California and other states that have declared federal laws as overreaching,” Michael Brown added.
“The same is true for marijuana laws. Marijuana is still considered a Schedule 1 class drug by the federal government and yet some states have stepped up and voted to declassify that drug for medicinal use. Guns aren’t any different.”