America is no longer split between Democrat and Republican. It’s now divided between citizens who believe in big government and those who consider small government the key to personal liberty. Social unity vs. individual rights. Economic dependency vs. financial self-sufficiency. Not to put too fine a point on it, it’s a struggle between slavery and freedom. The battle over the natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms has thrown this Great Divide into high relief. We’re once again a nation of slave states (e.g., California, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island), free states (e.g., Texas, Kansas, Arizona, Wyoming, Utah, Montana) and states moving one way or the other (e.g., Colorado, New Mexico, Illinois). And now Missouri has declared its status . . .

The Missouri Legislature sent the governor a bill Wednesday that would expand gun rights and declare all federal gun regulations unenforceable, in a response to President Obama’s push for gun control legislation.

Aside from nullification—a movement to which Kansas recently ascribed (much to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s chagrin)—the new bill expands Missourians’ existing gun rights.

In addition to declaring federal gun laws unenforceable, the bill would allow concealed weapons to be carried by designated school personnel in school buildings. It would allow appointed “protection officers” to carry concealed weapons as long as they have a valid permit and register with the state Department of Public Safety. The officers would also be required to complete a training course. The bill would also allow people with a firearms permit to openly carry weapons less than 16 inches in length even in localities that prohibit open-carry of firearms . . . The legislation passed Wednesday would prevent people from publishing any identifying information on gun owners. A person who publishes such information would be guilty of a class A misdemeanor. It also would prevent doctors or nurses from being required to ask patients about firearm ownership. The measure would also lower the minimum age required to obtain a concealed weapons permit from 21 to 19.

And if that’s not enough—and it may well not be, considering the AG’s hard-on for Kansas and the Supreme Court’s fondness for considering sneezing interstate commerce—the Show-Me State is considering an amendment to their constitution that would make residents’ right to keep and bear arms an “inalienable” right.

The tension between the two Americas continues to build . . .