“It used to be that local governments all across the country could regulate what was best for their community when it came to firearms,” Cutilletta explained. “And then the NRA went on this campaign to convince states, one by one, to restrict that authority. And they were very successful. Over the years—a couple of decades—almost every state has preempted local regulation of firearms. What the states are doing now is introducing laws that make preemption more broad.”

When Illinois passed a law last year that created a concealed-handgun permitting process, the legislation included a preemption clause to prohibit cities like Chicago from passing their own ordinances restricting concealed carry. Now, Sheriff Tom Dart of Cook County (which includes the Windy City) is concerned that hundreds of people with criminal records have been cleared for concealed carry by the state, and there’s little he can do to stop ex-convicts from legally carrying concealed weapons in his jurisdiction. Dart even found that 12 of Illinois’s certified concealed-carry instructors have criminal backgrounds.

Cook County isn’t the only urban community hamstrung by preemption. In an effort to reduce one of the highest homicide rates in the U.S., community leaders in St. Louis have pursued countless crime-reduction initiatives—youth outreach, employment programs, and mental-health services—everything but gun reform, which is beyond their purview. Through a series of preemption measures beginning in 1984, the Missouri legislature has systematically stripped city and county governments of the authority to regulate guns.

Last month, the Missouri senate approved a bill that would remove the last bit of local authority to regulate firearms—a municipality’s prerogative to decide where and how gun owners can openly carry their weapons in public. The bill would also lower the minimum age to get a concealed-carry permit from 21 to 19, allow designated teachers or administrators to carry guns in schools, and nullify federal gun laws. Anyone attempting to enforce a federal gun law that has been “declared invalid” by Missouri could be jailed for up to one year. When the bill moved through committee, the only dissenting vote came from Senator Jamilah Nasheed, who represents St. Louis.

If SB 613 becomes law, Missouri would join a growing list of states that have passed nullification legislation, none of which is likely to survive scrutiny in the courts. Most of these bills are modeled on a 2009 Montana law, which was invalidated last year by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The bill is unconstitutional,” said Rebecca Morgan of the Missouri chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. “But even if it’s found to be unconstitutional, Missouri is a state where every bill is severable. That means that, even if a court finds part of it unconstitutional, the rest remains. And there are so many things in this bill that we find reckless.”