DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Montana to exempt in-state guns from Federal gun control laws

**Rellshare** · 02-02-2007, 07:40 PM

Now that we have a Supreme Court that doesn't lean to the left any longer, the Feds may not be able to abuse it much longer.

Commerce Clause abuse has been one of the more egrigious sins of Congress, so much so that the lean away from it was started more than 10 years ago.

The Commerce Clause simply says that Congress has the power to regulate commerce between the several states. It was put in to the Const because, before that document was written, the central government (under the Articles of Confederations) did NOT have the power to regulate interstate commerce... and the result was a huge snarl of contradictory and every-shfting tariffs, trade restrictions, etc. between each state and its neighbor. So the power to regulate that commerce was assigned to the Fed Govt by the Constitution, and thus taken away from the states.

It was meant to make trade better and smoother, not to obstruct it. But in the 1930s, the Fed govt under FDR wanted to start regulating everything under the sun. That was mostly unconstitutional, so they started adding the words "that are transported or used in interstate commerce" to each thing they wanted to regulate, to pretend that the Framers meant them to regulate anything and everything. And then they would simply start busting everybody who did anything with the regulated item, even if the particular one they were looking at hadn't been involved in interstate commerce at all. And they would also claim that even explicit language in the Constitution that prohibited regulation of certain items, was now superseded by this newly-discovered commerce-clause regulation. Guns were one of those items.

Check out the case US v. Lopez, from 1995. It is the first significant USSC case where the justices finally said, "Hey, wait a minute, the connection to interstate commerce is just too remote and speculative for the Feds to be able to claim the power to regulate it."

US v. Lopez was a case over the Federal law that banned guns within 1,000 feet of a school. As I recall, this law didn't even say "guns transported in interstate commerce" the way other mealymouthed gun-control laws did. The government lawyers used the following rationale:

1.) Guns in or near schools, created an atmosphere of fear and danger.
2.) That affected the kids' study habits, and that made them less likely to do well in school.
3.) That made them less likely to get good jobs and become productive citizens.
4.) That meant the the companies they eventually joined wouldn't make as good or as many products.
5.) That meant that they wouldn't do as much selling as they might have, including selling across state lines.
6.) And THAT meant that guns in schools affected interstate commerce!!!

At least, that was the argument the lawyers used, in front of the Supreme Court in US v. Lopez. With straight faces, even. The conservative justices literally laughed at them. Chief Justice Rehnquist asked one of the lawyers, if he could name one item in all of existence, that such an argument could NOT be used to justify Federal control over. They lawyer couldn't name one.

It was a stunning case in which common sense actually prevailed over the agenda of unlimited government expansion and control. The gun-free school zones law was stricken. (It was re-written later, omitting the commerce part, and using some other excuse.)

It's similar to the wheat-farmer case, where someone was trying to pretend that items not in interstate commerce, were still subject to Federal control for the very reason that they were NOT, and affected commerce by their absence. It's a bizarre twist, that can be applied to every item on the planet: everything is either involved or not involved! That's how screwy the arguments are getting, in the government-uber-alles people's desperate attempts to expand Federal control over everything they can see.

02-02-2007, 07:40 PM	#7
Rellshare Join Date Nov 2005 Posts 479 Senior Member	Now that we have a Supreme Court that doesn't lean to the left any longer, the Feds may not be able to abuse it much longer. Commerce Clause abuse has been one of the more egrigious sins of Congress, so much so that the lean away from it was started more than 10 years ago. The Commerce Clause simply says that Congress has the power to regulate commerce between the several states. It was put in to the Const because, before that document was written, the central government (under the Articles of Confederations) did NOT have the power to regulate interstate commerce... and the result was a huge snarl of contradictory and every-shfting tariffs, trade restrictions, etc. between each state and its neighbor. So the power to regulate that commerce was assigned to the Fed Govt by the Constitution, and thus taken away from the states. It was meant to make trade better and smoother, not to obstruct it. But in the 1930s, the Fed govt under FDR wanted to start regulating everything under the sun. That was mostly unconstitutional, so they started adding the words "that are transported or used in interstate commerce" to each thing they wanted to regulate, to pretend that the Framers meant them to regulate anything and everything. And then they would simply start busting everybody who did anything with the regulated item, even if the particular one they were looking at hadn't been involved in interstate commerce at all. And they would also claim that even explicit language in the Constitution that prohibited regulation of certain items, was now superseded by this newly-discovered commerce-clause regulation. Guns were one of those items. Check out the case US v. Lopez, from 1995. It is the first significant USSC case where the justices finally said, "Hey, wait a minute, the connection to interstate commerce is just too remote and speculative for the Feds to be able to claim the power to regulate it." US v. Lopez was a case over the Federal law that banned guns within 1,000 feet of a school. As I recall, this law didn't even say "guns transported in interstate commerce" the way other mealymouthed gun-control laws did. The government lawyers used the following rationale: 1.) Guns in or near schools, created an atmosphere of fear and danger. 2.) That affected the kids' study habits, and that made them less likely to do well in school. 3.) That made them less likely to get good jobs and become productive citizens. 4.) That meant the the companies they eventually joined wouldn't make as good or as many products. 5.) That meant that they wouldn't do as much selling as they might have, including selling across state lines. 6.) And THAT meant that guns in schools affected interstate commerce!!! At least, that was the argument the lawyers used, in front of the Supreme Court in US v. Lopez. With straight faces, even. The conservative justices literally laughed at them. Chief Justice Rehnquist asked one of the lawyers, if he could name one item in all of existence, that such an argument could NOT be used to justify Federal control over. They lawyer couldn't name one. It was a stunning case in which common sense actually prevailed over the agenda of unlimited government expansion and control. The gun-free school zones law was stricken. (It was re-written later, omitting the commerce part, and using some other excuse.) It's similar to the wheat-farmer case, where someone was trying to pretend that items not in interstate commerce, were still subject to Federal control for the very reason that they were NOT, and affected commerce by their absence. It's a bizarre twist, that can be applied to every item on the planet: everything is either involved or not involved! That's how screwy the arguments are getting, in the government-uber-alles people's desperate attempts to expand Federal control over everything they can see.
	Quote