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Gun lobby has reigned too long in state capitals

January 19, 2013

The pro-gun side has assigned itself the privilege of telling the rest of us what the Second Amendment stands for — basically no holds barred access to firearms, no matter how deadly. We don’t have to accept that interpretation.

— Barb Shelly, Kansas City Star

MissouriStateCapitol-690

©2013 By Barb Shelly, Kansas City Star

Barb Shelly, Kansas City Star

Barb Shelly, Kansas City Star

Missouri legislators didn’t even wait for the announcement.

Certain that President Barack Obama planned to roll back their God-granted liberties, elected leaders this week filed pre-emptive legislation that would make it a crime to enforce enhanced federal gun safety measures in Missouri.

And about the time the president was announcing common-sense steps that polls show are supported by most Americans, GOP lawmakers took to the Senate floor to announce they might have to consider drastic acts of resistance, maybe even nullification, to block them.

Nullification — defiance of federal law by a state government — is getting to be old hat in Missouri. The House last year passed a bill declaring the Affordable Care Act to be null and void in the Show-Me State, and threatening jail time for anybody who attempted to enact parts of it.

It’s an exercise in hot air. The U.S. Constitution gives federal law supremacy over state law.

Read the entire opinion at kansascity.com

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