The U.S. Supreme Court's order last week that Missouri's so-called Second Amendment Preservation Act cannot be enforced while pending appeals play out was the smallest of steps toward sanity on the issue, but one that came with an ominous footnote: How is it possible that any sitting justice, even one as ideologically blinkered as Clarence Thomas, could signal any support whatsoever for this blatantly unconstitutional scheme?

The state law in question effectively declares federal firearms statutes null and void in Missouri if there isn't a corresponding statute in state law.

Never mind that the U.S. Constitution specifies that federal laws take precedence over state laws. Never mind that the Civil War settled definitively the question of whether states could simply decide to go their own way if they don't like federal policies.

And never mind that this ludicrous statute, even under its current suspension, has already hampered law enforcement and made Missourians less safe. The supposed "law and order" Republicans who control Missouri government clearly care less about protecting their constituents than projecting to their political base the most extreme stance possible on guns.

The Missouri law was enacted in 2021, drawing a lawsuit from the federal government alleging it violates the Constitution's supremacy clause. On that point, the plain wording of Article 6, Section 2 is clear: Federal law "shall be the supreme Law of the Land," the "Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." Period.

Unsurprisingly, a federal court in Kansas City early this year declared the Missouri law "unconstitutional in its entirety." The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis subsequently upheld that ruling and prevented the state from enforcing the law as it pursues further appeals.

Missouri filed an emergency request to the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the law to stay in effect pending appeal. The court's brief order last week denying that request didn't include a full vote of the court, which isn't unusual for such orders.

But it specified that Thomas "would grant the application for stay" to allow the law to go into effect if it were up to him.

That's troubling because it's entirely possible the law will eventually be back before the high court when the rest of the appeals run out. As inconceivable as it is that anyone even vaguely familiar with the constitutional concept of federalism — let alone a sitting Supreme Court justice — would signal support for this law, Thomas has effectively done that.

And the fact that the rest of the court declined to allow the law to go into effect pending appeals doesn't mean some of them wouldn't ultimately find some twisted rationale for upholding it. As the nation has witnessed with recent decisions on abortion, school prayer and, yes, guns, this court's conservative majority is perfectly willing to issue brazenly ideological opinions backed up by whatever shifting interpretations of law serve that ideological agenda in the moment.

Missouri's law contains a provision that empowers private citizens to sue local police agencies for up to $50,000 for alleged violation of the Second Amendment. No wonder there have been reports of local police breaking away from joint federal-local crime-fighting efforts for fear of inadvertently violating the statute.

Thus does this law pose a real-world danger to real Missourians, in addition to its philosophically repugnant assault on a federal Constitution it pretends to backstop.

There's nothing anyone can do for now about the Supreme Court, but Missouri voters next year will have it in their power to signal to the state's politicians that they still care about the Constitution — not just the Second Amendment but all of it.

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