Not sure why you're getting downvoted, it's a good joke - this is one of the two standards (along with "necessary and proper") that courts have used to justify ~every federal law as constitutional.
Fun fact: the federal law that bans firearms in schools is based on "interstate commerce".
> the firearm in question "has moved in or otherwise affects interstate commerce."[3] As nearly all firearms have moved in interstate commerce at some point in their existence, critics assert this was merely a legislative tactic to circumvent the Supreme Court's ruling.[2]
This is way beyond my knowledge but I found an interesting article about the constitutionality of a US law regulating firearms in schools. It’s not entirely relevant to this subject but it helped me understand a bit more of the how/why of these sorts of decisions.
Fair enough. But United States v Lopez weakened the Gun-Free School Zone Act a bit to require prosecutors to prove a link between the gun in question and interstate commerce.
> It limited the ability of the US government to ban possession of handguns near schools.
Only in the same sense that the US government is limited in its ability to declare that marijuana is illegal when individual states consider it legal, no?
In both cases, it's because the enforcement of any such law would happen at the state (or municipal) level, so in practice the state gets to decide whether the practice is de-facto illegal or de-facto legal. (Where by "de-facto legal" I mean "legal unless you did it in front of a federal agent, which is a vanishingly rare circumstance to be in.")
That rule has been there since the beginning even if you don't acknowledge it.
EDIT: It didn't need to be acknowledged because there wasn't a strong push to disarm the population until fairly recently.
EDIT2: It looks to me like they only really go back to just after the civil war, largely to keep African Americans from carrying firearms. The first attempt by the Federal Government to ban them was in the mid 20th century which was exactly what I expected.
EDIT3: James Madison tried and failed to pass the legislation (presumably because it was unpopular), at the state level (not federal level) and it didn't prevent people from owning guns just carrying them in public.
> devolving this question back out to the states, so states that overwhelmingly support restrictions regain some knobs to accomplish that (through licensure requirements)
The issue with this is that there are no border or customs checks between US states (with some rare, ad-hoc exceptions). The result of this is you get states like Indiana and Virginia selling weapons with relatively few restrictions that travel up an "iron pipeline" to cities with more restrictions like Chicago and New York.
The federal government is supposed to regulate interstate trade, but has decided that they won't regulate interstate transfer of guns _in this way_, so the most lax state law will de facto become the baseline for an entire region.
Big problem is the Supreme Court said states can't ban handguns. Which is sort of insane because they allow states to ban 'assault weapons' and sawed off shotguns.
In principle, I agree, but in the US, a blanket requirement for licensure of all firearms is unconstitutional. It is, on the other hand, unclear that licensure of tactical rifles would be.
The truly crazy ruling was US v Miller [0], the case that is the foundation for essentially all gun regulation from the National Firearms Act onwards. A ruling where only the government presented an argument, because the defendant was in hiding after testifying against the rest of his gang.
> It was a crazy long hard won battle to make that sentence mean something it clearly and obviously doesn't.
I'd like "shall not be infringed" to have meaning again, thanks.
Outright banning is only legally permissible when a) the state can prove that they are able to NARROWLY infringe your rights and b) that they can demonstrate significant gains and c) if the firearm to be banned is not "one in common use at the time".
For affirmations of this, you can reference the Supreme Court decisions in DC v Heller (and to a lesser degree, Chicago v McDonald). Both cases were notable for having overturned outright firearms bans in both DC and Chicago as they were Constitutional infringements.
It's also worth noting that they're both relatively recent cases.
The AR15 is the most common rifle sold in America today, and while a 1994 Assault Weapons ban was able to get passed, I genuinely don't believe it could happen today. There have been a plethora of recent Supreme Court cases affirming that citizens have the right to bear arms, even though the state might wish to prohibit it, and as these are SCOTUS decisions, they of course apply at a federal level. In the 94 ban, there hadn't been any challenges to gun control legislation since US v Miller, in 1939, and that was at the very least an odd case as Miller was tried in absentia, and actually died before the case concluded with an unfavorable verdict for him.
Regardless, the cases are piling up in support of the second amendment, with Illinois' firearms ban having been affirmed as unconstitutional just a few days ago (though the initial ruling happened sometime last year).
I realize this is a large rant in response to a fairly small statement, but I think that precedent pretty much eliminates either a regressive licensing system or blanket banning (on firearms in common use), though of course there may be other strategies (which I'm sure we'll find out as many states are passing clearly Unconstitutional legislation).
The fun part about the second amendment is the full auto weapon ban. If this is constitutional - then the same mechanism could be used to regulate other types of guns. If it is not (which current readings seem to hint at), then it should fall.
And note, that on a federal level, the only restriction are machine guns manufactured after 1968. In many states, full auto before 1968, grenade launchers, etc are fully legal for individuals to own. The ban on machine guns manufactured after 1968 is clearly unconstitutional. (See US v Miller, where a short barrel shotgun was ruled not protected under the 2nd amendment as it was NOT a military weapon)
Ah, that's much clearer...thank your for rewording your point. And yeah, that's a bit screwy.
I think--and this is without reading the relevant rulings, so take it as a wild-ass guess--that while regulating the rifles is one thing, outright banning an entire class of weapon fails to make sense. That'd be my guess.
I'd be more supportive of this if it mattered but it doesn't. Worse, a lot of it is probably virtue signaling.
Here's what we really need. We need a blue state to pass a law, the substance of which is this:
> No person with the state of X shall possess a firearm. Any citizen but no government official may sue anyone who possesses, attempts to purchase, attempts to sell or gifts a firearm to any other person for $10,000. They may also sue anyone aiding any such person. No court shall award costs where the case is decided for the defendant.
You get the idea.
Then let's see how supportive conservatives and the Supreme Court are of the idea that this isn't an end run against constitutionality.
The most disturbing thing to me is that such a novel law wasn't stayed pending full judicial review. It really exposes what a self-serving hypocrisy "constitutional textualism" really is.
As for companies, any action less than leaving the state entirely I will view as empty posturing.
If by government they mean civilian government/law enforcement, and excluding military, then that's a very valid line of reasoning. Other than machine guns manufactured after 1986, which ban is likely unconstitutional(1), on a federal level in the US there's no arms law enforcement can have that civilians not employed in LE can't also own with the proper paperwork.
(1)The most recent case I know that mentioned constitutionality of the machine gun ban used the circular logic that as machine guns are not currently common weapons owned and in use by civilians, because they are banned, it's not illegal to ban them. Seeing as how machine guns manufactured before 1986 are legal to own, and it's rather easy to /illegally/ convert a rifle to full auto, the ban really does nothing of use other than make holders of pre-1986 guns wealthy. Since there's a small number of people who could afford the ammo to shoot full auto other than as a novelty, no one cares enough to challenge the ban seriously.
True, but there is a double standard. The same rule that bans abortion pill sale, should ban gun sale. Feels a bit like "They may be real guns loaded with bullets, and used to murder a bunch of kids. Carry on."
Fun fact: the federal law that bans firearms in schools is based on "interstate commerce".
> the firearm in question "has moved in or otherwise affects interstate commerce."[3] As nearly all firearms have moved in interstate commerce at some point in their existence, critics assert this was merely a legislative tactic to circumvent the Supreme Court's ruling.[2]
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