The Missouri Police Chiefs Association (MPCA) has filed an amicus brief in support of the city of Arnold’s lawsuit against the state of Missouri and Attorney General Eric Schmitt over the Second Amendment Preservation Act (SAPA).
The City of Arnold is seeking a declaratory judgment from Jefferson County Circuit Court to clarify SAPA and to allegedly promote public safety and effective law enforcement.
“The language contained in SAPA places a continuous and unreasonable burden on our members and the State’s entire law enforcement community to interpret the vague language and attempt compliance,” wrote attorney J. Christopher Hesse on behalf of MPCA in the amicus brief
SAPA prevents local law enforcement agencies from enforcing federal gun laws. Gov. Parson enacted the bill into law on June 12.
“Due to the uncertainty caused by the structure and wording of SAPA, law enforcement officers throughout Missouri are left with no choice but to avoid any involvement with federal agencies or laws that could have anything to do with firearms, regardless of whether such involvement would better assist the law enforcement community in protecting the citizens of Missouri, or allow the law enforcement community to comply with other state and federal statutes,” Hesse stated.
The MPCA is made up of some 600 members statewide.
“If you violate that statute or you're sued under that statute for assisting federal agencies, it’s a $50,000 fine, and nobody wants be that test case,” said Bob Muenz, president of MCPA and police chief at Blue Springs Police Department. “So, some agencies are pulling their detectives off of the federal task force and others are not submitting serial numbers on guns into the federal system to check to see if those guns are stolen. They don’t want to be sued.”
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.
“We are checking serial numbers but we have not been doing ballistics on bullets or casings because we don’t know if it’s legal or not,” Muenz told the St. Louis Record. “So, if an agency such as us are not taking ballistics on a weapon, are we missing the chance that that weapon could be tied to another homicide investigation? If we're not running it through those ballistics, how would we know they're not tied to another homicide investigation by another agency across the state? That’s the dilemma.”