Commerce Claus – ignored for a century.
A Federal law requires that a federal licensed firearms dealer must do a background check on a prospective buyer before selling it. The law forcing this was known as the “Brady Bill”, after Jim Brady who was shot and crippled in the attack on President Reagan.
Montana passed a law that says “nope, we don’t have to do it”:
In a bill passed by the Legislature earlier this month, the state is asserting that guns manufactured in Montana and sold in Montana to people who intend to keep their weapons in Montana are exempt from federal gun registration, background check and dealer-licensing rules because no state lines are crossed.
The Constitution permits the Federal Government to regulate and tax commerce between the states. This is known as the "Commerce Claus” and it has become largely ignored during the rampant growth of the Federal Government in the last century.
Since I feel that gun ownership is a Constitutional right that cannot be denied any citizen, I’d prefer the Brady Law went down under 2nd Amendment rulings, but weakening it via the Commerce Clause is fine with me.
I expect Montana will lose this case. Not on the merits, but because the Supreme Court after Obama is done with it will not be an honest interpreter of the Constitution but just another corrupt extension of the facsocialist (facist socialist) attempts to hold power.
Ultimately, instead, I expect this issue and many others will be decided in blood after the 3rd American Revolution. I’ll write more about how I expect that Revolution to go. Hint – look at the French Revolution for a model. Put another way, if I was a political elite, I’d be worried about my safety in 5 to 10 years.
May 12th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Is this the Patrick Henry Caucus I asked you about or something different? Can you influence or offer help to the Utah legislater that is sponsoring the Utah version of this bill. Are your guns “Made in Utah” as the criteria for this revolution espouses or are you going to have to have that engraved on each one. I heard that each individual part has to have that on not just the barrel or cylinder.
May 12th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
I’d favor Utah taking another approach. And I think the Commerce Claus approach doomed in courts that have decided to ignore the Commerce Claus. So I’ll not be lobbying about this.
I’d favor Utah just guarantee its qualified citizens the right to own a firearm and to self, town and state defense and declare that no Federal law can supersede that. Any gun, of any origin, no federal rules apply.
In other words, fight it out over state sovereignty of things not directly given in the Constitution to the feds. That is actually what the Constitution says. Winning that way gives the states broad ability to boot the feds out of big parts of their current intrusions into our lives.
May 12th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Good luck with fighting what you don’t like about federalism, a fight that has been going on since 1789 when the first George W took office. Every test of state sovereignty ultimately comes down to the reality that the Constitution says whatever the Supreme Court says it does. Remember that the states invented the Constitution because strong state sovereignty proved to make an unworkable nation. And before you break the Constitution over your policy preferences, think thrice about the unintended consequences for national unity.
August 13th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
get ffl