County officials in Missouri are refusing to cooperate with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), asserting that the federal agency is “unconstitutional”.

Camden County presiding commissioner Ike Skelton, County Attorney Jeff Green, County Treasurer Kendra Hicks, and Sheriff Tony Helms were among the six senior elected officials to write to the agency known for its involvement in incidents such as the Waco massacre. They cited a local ordinance as justification for refusing to cooperate.

“Under the Anti-Commandeering Doctrine, Camden County was the first county in Missouri, and possibly in the country, to pass an ordinance prohibiting any county employee from assisting your unconstitutional agency in violating the rights of our citizens,” wrote Skelton in comments quoted by a local NPR affiliate.

In a further statement, he argued that “[a]ny and all federal firearms laws, so-called laws, in my opinion, and many others’ opinion, are unconstitutional.”

Challenging the Feds. 

Missouri is the scene of a much wider battle between conservative-led state governments backing the people’s right to bear arms and the Joe Biden-led federal government, which is seeking to restrict it.

In March, an Obama-appointed federal judge, Brian Wimes, moved to strike down the Second Amendment Preservation Act of 2021, a law passed by Missouri’s legislature which empowered Missourians to sue local and state officials assisting federal agencies infringing Second Amendment rights for tens of thousands of dollars.

Wimes ruled the act was “unconstitutional” and therefore “invalid, null, void, and of no effect,” arguing that it undermined the supremacy of federal law over state law.

Biden’s Attorney General, Merrick Garland, who brought the case, gloated that he was “gratified” by Wimes’s initial decision, but Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey insisted he would “defend this statute to the highest court” — and the judge has conceded that the act can remain in force while the appeals process is ongoing, at least for now.

Wimes’s position that the law unconstitutionally abrogates federal law and is “designed to [do just that” and the Missourian position that states can disapply federal gun laws on grounds that they are unconstitutional are in direct conflict.

Observers well beyond Missouri will be watching closely to see which position wins out, given the enormous implications it could have not just for gun rights, but also states’ rights and the very nature of governance within the Union.