Judges question whether measure violates Hancock Amendment

St. Louis Post-Dispatch ^ | 01/22/2004 | TERRY GANEY

[neverdem]

JEFFERSON CITY - The Supreme Court judges who heard arguments on Missouri's concealed weapons law Thursday focused not on its public safety aspects but on how county sheriffs would be paid to carry it out.

During 30 minutes of debate, the judges peppered lawyers on both sides of the issue on whether the law violated the state's constitutional spending cap known as the Hancock Amendment.

[goldstategop]

If the gun banners lost in Missouri, look for the sounds of dominoes falling in neighboring Kansas and Nebraska to the north of it.

[neverdem]

Haggling about money is good in one sense, but wrong when considering a natural right.

[Rifleman]

What is going on here is that the Democrat appointed majority on the MOSupremes is desperate to find that the CCW bill is unconstitutional. But the "shall not justify" clause would have to be twisted into its opposite meaning to do this and they don't want to look that stupid and corrupt.

So they dig around and find that the bill is imperfectly drafted and that, if you assume that the Legislature are idiots (which you are normally not entitled to do in this kind of analysis) then the $100 fee cannot be counted as payment for the expenses imposed on the sheriffs and is thus an unfunded mandate under the Hancock Amendment. But to find this way, they would have to ignore the courts own previous decisions on the subject of Hancock. So in either case they can find the CCW constitutional and annoy their masters or look like idiots.

It is a toss up.

[steve8714]

I think they will find some stupid excuse to call it unconstitutional. Don't forget, dead people in STL voted to disarm the living.