Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Gun Owners of America is sounding the alarm after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up DOJ v. Missouri, leaving Missouri’s Second Amendment Protection Act (SAPA) effectively dead.
And according to GOA’s Ben from the Minute Man Moment (see video below), the blame sits squarely on the shoulders of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice.
For a law designed to protect Missouri gun owners from federal overreach, the ending couldn’t be more ironic.
GOA notes that Bondi’s DOJ attacked SAPA the same way the Biden administration did, even though President Trump had issued an executive order directing agencies to protect Second Amendment rights.
Instead of defending a state law aligned with that policy, DOJ lawyers moved to dismantle it and succeeded.
SAPA, passed in 2021, didn’t nullify federal gun laws. It simply barred Missouri’s officers from being conscripted into enforcing federal gun control that went beyond constitutional limits.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld this principle in cases involving firearms, immigration, environmental rules, and even marijuana enforcement: the federal government cannot force states or state police to carry out federal policy.
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But Bondi’s DOJ argued otherwise, treating SAPA as if Missouri were declaring federal law void. GOA says that’s not just legally wrong. It’s dangerous.
As Ben put it, the law “did not prevent federal agents from enforcing federal law. It simply stated that Missouri’s officers would not be conscripted to help.”
With SAPA gone, Missouri gun owners now face the possibility that their own state and local agencies could be pulled into federal prosecutions targeting otherwise law-abiding citizens.
GOA warns that this collapses both Second Amendment protections and the Tenth Amendment safeguards that keep Washington, D.C. from forcing states to spend resources enforcing federal gun control.
GOA argues that this is more than a legal defeat. It’s a broken promise.
The administration “is saying one thing and doing another,” Ben said, highlighting that DOJ kept advancing Biden-era arguments against state autonomy even while claiming to champion gun rights.
“Missouri’s law was a legitimate use of state authority,” GOA emphasized. By attacking it, DOJ “failed” the very constituency a pro–2A administration promised to defend.
GOA is urging gun owners to act, calling on supporters to contact the White House and demand that the Department of Justice stop fighting gun owners and work with GOA to restore the Second Amendment.
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is a seasoned outdoorsman, lifelong hunter, and the kind of guy who’d rather track whitetails than scroll social media. As an editor for GunsAmerica, he’s got a sharp eye for spotting both solid gear and bad gun laws. Whether he’s deep in the woods or deep in editorial deadlines, Larry brings a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is approach to firearms, hunting, and the great American tradition of self-reliance. If there’s a hot debate on gun rights or the latest in hunting tech, you can bet Larry’s got an opinion—and it’s probably backed up with both facts and field experience.
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if i’m reading this correctly it sounds like the fed want’s assistance from local le’s to carry out such things as immigration, drug busts, and other things…….so what is bad about that. sounds like damned if you do and damned if you don’t.