The Associated Press story on Missouri Republicans' latest nullification nonsense gets buried to the point of the final paragraph. It starts off well enough:
Missouri Republicans are considering a new approach to prevent federal agents from enforcing laws the state considers to be infringements on gun rights — barring them from future careers in state law enforcement agencies.
The change marks the most recent version of Missouri's attempt to nullify some federal gun control laws. It was endorsed by a state Senate committee this past week and is likely to reach the chamber floor.
Well sure, that's standard GOP idiocy that's patently unconstitutional. The Supremacy Clause has been settled precedent for decades now: states can't pass laws that specifically refuse to enforce federal ones. The Missouri GOP wants to not only make enforcement of federal gun control laws a crime, they now want to end the law enforcement careers of those who enforce these federal laws, and they reserve the right to declare which laws are unconstitutional.
The only thing keeping these bills from becoming law is Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon.
If the Senate passes the new version, the House would also need to sign off before the bill could reach Gov. Jay Nixon's desk. The Democratic governor vetoed a similar bill last year and has expressed reservations about any legislation that seeks to nullify federal laws.
Although supporters consider the employment ban a more moderate position, the change is unlikely to sway the measure's opponents who argue the entire bill wouldn't survive a court challenge because states cannot nullify federal laws.
"I'm adamantly opposed to this buffoonery," said Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis. "I just don't think that we should be wasting our time on legislation that we all know is unconstitutional."
Right, so all this makes sense. Why then are Republicans wasting their time? Literally we don't find out until the very last paragraph:
The bill would also lower the minimum age required to get a concealed weapons permit to 19 from 21 and allow those permit holders to carry a firearm openly, even in municipalities with ordinances prohibiting open carry.
So this isn't a nullification bill at all, it's an open carry bill. But we apparently can't call it an open carry bill for some reason.
Funny how that works.
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