The Supreme Court turned away Missouri’s bid to revive its law purporting to declare various federal gun restrictions unconstitutional in the state, the justices announced Monday. 

It has become a major battle over state versus federal authority. The Biden administration launched a lawsuit and convinced lower courts that Missouri’s statute violates the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. 

After the change in administration, Trump’s Justice Department maintains that some provisions are unconstitutional.
 

But it agreed the lower judge went too far in blocking the act’s entirety at the onset. The administration urged the Supreme Court to turn away Missouri’s appeal and send the case back so the injunction can be narrowed. 

“That is all the more reason why review by this Court is unwarranted at this juncture,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court filings. 

Monday’s announcement came on the first day of the Supreme Court’s new term, a year already filled with major battles over race, LGBTQ rights and Trump’s second-term agenda. 

The justices considered Missouri’s petition at a closed-door conference last week alongside hundreds of other cases that had piled up over the summer.  On Friday, the court announced they will hear a Second Amendment challenge to a Hawaii gun law, which bans concealed carry on private property without the owner’s express permission. 

Missouri’s Republican-led legislature passed the Second Amendment Preservation Act in 2021, declaring certain federal gun laws unconstitutional and prohibits using state resources to enforce them.  

Missouri agencies and law enforcement also cannot hire anyone who has attempted to enforce those laws as a federal employee. Private parties can sue over violations and seek up to $50,000 penalties. 

The Biden administration challenged the law and won in the lower courts.  

The Supreme Court at an earlier stage of the case declined Missouri’s request for an emergency intervention that would enable the law’s enforcement as litigation proceeds. Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the court’s conservatives, publicly dissented. 

Back at the high court, Missouri’s petition insisted the law is constitutional and the federal government lacks the right to sue Missouri because the law is enforced by private citizens, not state actors. 

Missouri told the justices they should still take up the case to definitively reject the legal challenge, despite the Trump administration’s urging to turn away the appeal. 

“The Eighth Circuit’s reasoning is a Pandora’s Box that will misguide lower courts and impose a straitjacket on States,” the state wrote in court filings. 

“No wonder the Government refuses to defend it.” 

, 2025-10-06 13:45:00, , TheHill.com Just In, %%https://thehill.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/cropped-favicon-512px-1.png?w=32, https://thehill.com/homenews/feed/, Zach Schonfeld