I completely understand the motivation behind Missouri legislators' desire to protect the gun rights of their citizenry. I'm a strong proponent of the Second Amendment and have always respected those rights during my four decades in law enforcement.
The problem with this statute is the poorly worded language that removes sovereign immunity and appears to allow law enforcement agencies and individual police officers to be sued for even good-faith, justified seizures of firearms in emergency circumstances.
Ten days before the March mass shooting that left 10 dead, a Boulder County District Court judge blocked the city's ban on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines. The judge ruled that the 2018 law violated a previous law from 2003 that made gun regulations a state interest to prevent "a patchwork of inconsistent local laws involving firearms."
SB21-256 now makes gun control "a matter of state and local concern."
