A Missouri bill that would make all federal gun laws “null and void” and criminalize enforcement of those laws was sent to Gov. Jay Nixon (D) Thursday, after it overwhelmingly passed the House this week by a vote of 118-36. If the bill is signed into law by the state’s Democratic governor, Missouri would become the second state to enact a nullification law that is clearly unconstitutional. After the enactment of a Kansas law containing similar provisions, Attorney General Eric Holder sent Kansas officials a letter warning that the Department of Justice would take Kansas to court over the issue. The bill also contains several other provisions to relax state gun laws. Fox News reports:

In addition to declaring federal gun laws unenforceable, the bill would allow concealed weapons to be carried by designated school personnel in school buildings. It would allow appointed “protection officers” to carry concealed weapons as long as they have a valid permit and register with the state Department of Public Safety. The officers would also be required to complete a training course.

The bill would also allow people with a firearms permit to openly carry weapons less than 16 inches in length even in localities that prohibit open-carry of firearms.

Privacy rights of gun owners have been a hot topic this legislative session after lawmakers learned the state Highway Patrol shared the list of concealed weapons permit holders with a federal agent in the Social Security Administration.

The legislation passed Wednesday would prevent people from publishing any identifying information on gun owners. A person who publishes such information would be guilty of a class A misdemeanor. It also would prevent doctors or nurses from being required to ask patients about firearm ownership.

The measure would also lower the minimum age required to obtain a concealed weapons permit from 21 to 19.

The bill’s nullification provision not only declares invalid all laws that ”infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment.” It also specifically states that several existing federal gun laws are void, including the Gun Control Act of 1968, even though that law merely sets forth the basic licensing system and list of prohibited gun purchasers and sellers that is now in place, and has not been deemed to violate the Second Amendment. The law also makes enforcement by federal officials a misdemeanor, and creates a private cause of action for Missouri citizens who are the subjects of federal enforcement to file a lawsuit for damages.

The bill even prohibits laws that impose “registration” and “confiscation” of guns, even though the failed bill in Congress to simply expand background checks would have included a provision explicitly banning a gun registry, and making its implementation punishable with jail time  –  a point that even gun rights organizations made during the National Rifle Association’s recent conference. But this is not the only recent Missouri bill to take an extreme and untenable position. The state Senate recently voted to entirely defund the state’s driver’s license bureau, citing gun confiscation worries, and both houses passed a bill to thwart a nonbinding United Nations resolution on sustainable resource development that conspiracy theorists warn will take away their freedom.

Earlier this week, the Alabama senate passed a bill that purports to nullify any action the federal government takes regarding firearms. The bill provides that “[a]ll federal acts, laws, orders, rules, or regulations regarding firearms are a violation of the Second Amendment,” and that such acts “shall not be recognized by this state, are specifically rejected by this state, and shall be considered null and void and of no effect in this state.” Last month, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) signed a similar bill into law in his state.

As ThinkProgress has previously explained, these bills are unconstitutional and have virtually no chance of being upheld by the courts. The Constitution provides that duly enacted federal laws “shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.” Indeed, if states had the unilateral authority to decide which federal laws are or are not constitutional, as nullification’s proponents claim, it would undermine America’s very ability to exist as a single nation. As James Madison warned, nullification would “speedily put an end to the Union itself.”

Yet, while these nullification bills are doomed to fail, they are likely to inflict a profound human cost if signed into law. If Alabama’s governor signs this bill, the lawmakers who supported it will go home, pat themselves on the back for finding a new way to stick it to Obama and liberals, maybe collect some campaign donations from the NRA and its leadership, and then promptly move on to something else. Meanwhile, an innocent, largely law abiding citizen will read in the newspaper that federal gun laws no longer exist in Alabama, and could decide based on that fact to commit a federal gun crime. The law enforcement officials who arrest that citizen, the prosecutors who try him and the judge who ultimately sentences him will care little that Alabama passed an unconstitutional nullification bill — they will just do their job of enforcing the still-valid federal law.

Americans have a right to know what the law is, and they should not be sent mixed messages by the people they elect to serve them. In this case, their decision to play political games with the Constitution could lead someone with no intention of violating the law to commit a federal crime and bear the consequences of that action. That is far to high a price to pay in order to score some rhetorical points against supporters of gun laws.

Nearly two centuries ago, South Carolina Sen. John C. Calhoun nearly sparked a civil war when he led an unconstitutional effort to nullify a federal law his state government disagreed with. One hundred and eighty years later, South Carolina lawmakers want to do it again. Last night, the South Carolina House passed an attempt to “interpose and refuse to enforce” much of the Affordable Care Act.

The bill includes a number of attempts to undermine health reform, some of which are unconstitutional, others of which are merely unwise. The most insidious provision of the bill, however, is this:

A South Carolina resident taxpayer who is subjected to a tax by the Internal Revenue Code under 26 U.S.C. Section 5000A of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act shall receive a tax deduction in the exact amount of the taxes or penalty paid the federal government pursuant to 26 U.S.C. Section 5000A. The tax deduction allowed by this section must be used in the year the federal tax or penalty is paid.

“26 U.S.C. Section 5000A” refers to the so-called individual mandate that was the primary subject of a losing attempt to convince the Supreme Court to repeal Obamacare last year. That provision works by requiring people who are not insured to pay slightly more income taxes in order to give them an incentive to buy insurance. Such an incentive is necessary because the Affordable Care Act also prohibits insurers from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions. So if people did not have a financial incentive to buy insurance before they get sick, they would wait until they got sick to buy insurance, and would eventually drain all the money out of an insurance plan that they paid virtually nothing into.

The South Carolina bill would erase this incentive by effectively having the state refund taxpayers hit with additional taxes because they did not purchase insurance. What the federal government takes, the state of South Carolina would give back. As a result, smart South Carolina residents would soon figure out that they can drop their insurance plans, save the cost of paying premiums, and then pick those plans back up the minute they are about to be hit with an expensive medical bill. Beginning in the 1990s, seven different states passed laws allowing health care consumers to behave this way, and it ended in disaster every single time. Some consumers saw their premiums rise over 350 percent. Others lost access to individual insurance plans entirely.

Beyond the fact that this bill could literally collapse the individual health insurance market in South Carolina, it is also a tribute to fiscal irresponsibility. By giving a tax deduction to South Carolinians who do not carry insurance, the state is essentially paying people to free ride. That’s money, by the way, that will not go to hiring teachers or putting cops on the streets or building schools because it is being diverted to this crusade against Obamacare.

Read more

On Wednesday, as gun violence victims’ families were up in arms over the Senate filibuster of key gun legislation, a Louisiana House committee approved eight bills that would relax the state’s already-permissive gun violence prevention laws, including one that would criminalize enforcement of federal law.

One bill that cleared the House Criminal Justice Committee would make enforcement of any federal restriction on ownership of semi-automatic weapons punishable by up to two years in prison and/or a $5,000 fine. Another claims to exempt intrastate gun manufacturers from federal regulation by issuing in-state licenses. Both of these laws, versions of which have been introduced in several states, would be clearly unconstitutional as a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause.

Other proposals approved Wednesday would make it a felony to intentionally disseminate concealed carry permit information, allow off-duty law enforcers to carry firearms into school campuses and restaurants that serve alcohol, permit lifetime concealed carry permits, and allow sheriffs to recognize concealed carry permits from neighboring jurisdictions.

In November, Louisiana voters passed a ballot initiative that created constitutional gun rights that are arguably stricter than the Second Amendment. A court has already relied on this constitutional amendment to strike down a ban on gun possession by violent felons.

Late last week, Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) vetoed legislation which would have forbidden state law enforcement from cooperating with federal officials in enforcing a ban on semi-automatic weapons or high-capacity magazines, should such a ban ever become law. According to Bullock, the legislation was nothing more than “unnecessary political theater.”

Contrary to at least one report, the Montana bill was not a “nullification” bill. Nullification is an unconstitutional tactic where a state attempts to simply invalidate a federal law by enacting a law saying it cannot be enforced. The Montana bill, by contrast, merely refuses to permit state officials to enforce a federal law, while still allowing federal officials to do so. Denying state assistance to enforce federal gun laws is not unconstitutional, it’s just a terrible idea.

Several state’s are considering outright nullification of federal gun laws, however. A few of these bills have even passed state legislatures, and some would throw federal law enforcement officers in jail for enforcing federal law. These bills aren’t just terrible, they are also unconstitutional. The Constitution provides that duly enacted federal laws “shall be the supreme law of the land,” and thus valid federal gun laws trump state law.

South Carolina state Rep. Bill Chumley really hates the Affordable Care Act. So much so that he introduced a wildly unconstitutional bill that would imprison any federal official who enforces Obamacare in the state of South Carolina for up to five years.

Chumley, however, isn’t just wasting the state legislature’s time with unconstitutional fantasies about nullifying health reform and giving big government’s employees their comeuppance, he also wasted taxpayer money shuttling a questionable “expert” into the state to testify in favor of his proto-Confederate proposal:

Rep. Bill Chumley of Woodruff brought Walter Williams from a suburban Washington airport to push for a bill that initially sought to nullify the federal health care law. The state planes’ four legs — to a Manassas, Va., airport and back, to pick up Williams and return him — would have cost a paying passenger nearly $6,400, according to the state Aeronautics Commission’s manifest and flight log.

Williams, a syndicated columnist and radio commentator who sometimes fills in for Rush Limbaugh, is well known for advocating state measures attempting to nullify the federal law.

Chumley again dismissed requests that he reimburse the state, calling Williams’ testimony official state business.

Nullification, the idea that states can invalidate federal laws — or worse, criminalize their enforcement — conflicts directly with the Constitution’s declaration that duly-enacted federal laws “shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.” As James Madison once warned, if states did have the unilateral authority to nullify federal laws, such a power would “speedily put an end to the Union itself.”

Yesterday, the Kentucky Senate overwhelmingly approved an unconstitutional bill forbidding the enforcement of new federal gun safety laws:

Any federal law, rule, regulation, or order created on or after January 1, 2013, including any amendment or other change made after January 1, 2013, to a preexisting federal law, rule, regulation, or order, shall be unenforceable within the borders of Kentucky if the law, rule, regulation, order, amendment, or other change attempts to:

(a) Ban or restrict ownership of a semi-automatic firearm, magazine, or other firearm accessory; or

(b) Require any firearm, magazine, or other firearm accessory to be registered in any manner.

Nullification, the Nineteenth Century idea that states can simply declare federal laws invalid, cannot be squared with the Constitution’s declaration that federal law “shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.” Yet the sponsor of this unconstitutional bill, state Sen. Jared Carpenter (R-KY), claims that he can make an end-run around the Constitution because the command that duly-enacted federal law are supreme over state law “applies only if Congress is acting in pursuit of its constitutionally authorized powers, which he said wouldn’t apply to stricter gun measures.”

Even if it were true, however, that bans on assault rifles and large capacity magazines and other proposed federal reforms are unconstitutional — and it is not true — that still does not mean that Kentucky has the unilateral power to declare something unconstitutional and therefore invalid within the state’s borders. Indeed, if Kentucky did have the power Carpenter claims, there would be nothing preventing it from declaring any law unconstitutional, regardless of what the Constitution has to say about it.

Giving states such a power would, in the words of James Madison, “speedily put an end to the Union itself.”

Among a slate of far-reaching gun bills that cleared the Montana House Judiciary Committee this week was one that takes defiance of federal authority far beyond the Second Amendment context. The “Sheriffs First” bill would require federal agents to seek county sheriffs’ permission before enforcing any federal law, and empowers those sheriffs to arrest federal agents who don’t comply for kidnapping. The bill also mandates county attorneys to prosecute any claim by a sheriff against a federal official. Mother Jones’ Tim Murphy reports:

The proposal already passed both houses of the legislature once, in 2011, but was vetoed by then-Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat. This time [Gary] Marbut, the Montana gun lobbyist and aspiring firearms manufacturer who wrote the bill, is hoping Montana voters will determine the fate of his legislation. If passed, the latest version of the Sheriffs First measure would become a ballot question in November of 2014. […]

For Marbut, a prolific lobbyist who has written 58 pro-gun bills that made it into law, the referendum would have an added benefit. An earlier law he wrote, which blocks the federal government from regulating in-state gun manufacturing, is tied up in the courts. But if his “Sheriffs first” measure became a reality, that would become an afterthought.

The ATF might say “We have probable cause to believe that we have this person in your county who’s making firearms without a license,” Marbut explains. “And the sheriff might say, ‘Well, gosh, under the Montana Firearms Freedom Act, that’s protected activity in Montana, so you don’t have my permission for this bust.”

In case it wasn’t clear to state legislators that the bill is blatantly unconstitutional and amounts to all-out revolt against our federal-state system, an official legal review explicitly warns that this violates of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which asserts that federal law trumps state law to the extent that they conflict. The analysis even cites a 1913 case in which the Supreme Court said that state law is preempted where, as here, “compliance with both federal and state regulation is a physical impossibility.” The document also links to a more in-depth analysis by the South Carolina Attorney General of a similar 2011 bill in that state, which adds that the mandatory prosecution of any claim by the county sheriff is a violation of separation of powers principles.

In a response, Marbut cautions the attorney who authored the memo to “be careful about any claim that LC 1040 is unconstitutional,” making the remarkable argument that the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause is entirely void because it conflicts with the subsequently passed Tenth Amendment.

The “Sheriffs First” bill is one of a number of unconstitutional state bills that have threatened to flout federal authority, through nullification of federal gun laws, discretion to nullify any laws they don’t like, and criminalizing federal enforcement of gun laws. The bill also tracks a movement by county sheriffs who have refused to enforce federal gun laws on the belief they are the highest law enforcement authorities – above federal authorities.
Read more

On Thursday, members of the Wyoming state House gave initial approval to a bill that would nullify any gun laws passed by the U.S. Congress pertaining to extended magazine clips or semi-automatic weapons. The move is not only unconstitutional, but it is thus far unnecessary: Congress has yet to pass any new gun laws for Wyoming to attempt to nullify.

Under the Constitution, states are not permitted to pass laws meant to supersede federal legislation. But state Rep. Kendell Kroeker (R) argued that since Congress has not yet passed any gun laws, the nullification measure did not violate the Constitution. “It is clearly a different case than trying to nullify something that’s already in existence,” Kroeker said.

But his colleagues apparently tried to keep the representative in check, with one pointing out, “If we want to make a statement we can do it, but let’s not let’s not pretend that it’s consistent with the Constitution, because it’s not.”

The bill was also amended to make it a misdemeanor charge for a federal employee to attempt to enforce federal gun laws in Wyoming. That’s actually an improvement from the original bill, which called for felony charges. It will now go to the Wyoming Senate where, with a 23-7 Republican majority, it will likely enjoy broad support.