In theory it weakened it but in practice it did not. Merely creating a good yourself in your own state for your own personal non-commercial use is considered interstate commerce. See Supreme Court refusing to hear Kettler's conviction for buying a suppressor made in the same state (the NFA regulating suppressors is constitutional through the interstate commerce clause, and gun parts made completely in one state for consumption in that state are interstate commerce), and the many other convictions for home made guns. All firearms have interstate commerce legally even if there is no link from any practical/physical viewpoint. You could pull iron out of the ground underneath your house, refine and form it yourself and create your own machine shop purely from raw material in your state and then make a gun, completely bypassing any trade of a single molecule from another state and it would be interstate commerce. The requirement for a link is a meaningless gesture to ensure the writing of it is constitutionally accurate.
Read up on Jeremy Kettler's attempt to avoid interstate commerce and also Wickard v Filburn. You probably know about the latter but not the former.
If growing your own plants with nothing but seed and material from the earth on your property, and then feeding it to your local animals is interstate commerce.... then it's hard to imagine any firearm even if made of iron pulled from the earth underneath you and machined on site and never sold to anyone or hell even fired could be considered to not have interstate nexus.
IIRC, if the industry can compete in an interstate market, it falls under the interstate commerce clause — even if the business only operates within a single state. So even forcing data to operate within a single state border would still not protect the bill. At least, that’s the theory behind regulating gun manufacturers that only operate with a single state. IANAL, but I don’t know if this theory has ever been tested at the USSC level.
There is usually only a token nod to interstate commerce, but it still exists.
As one example, there was a federal law known as the Gun Free School Zones Act that banned possessing a firearm within 1500 feet of a school (unless it was on private property, encased and locked, the possessor had a concealed pistol license, or a couple of other exceptions). In the case US v. Lopez, it got shot down as unconstitutional. It immediately got re-passed with the caveat that it affected any firearm that "has moved in or that otherwise affects interstate or foreign commerce", which of course is almost all of them.
Honestly, when reading about that, I find the panels reasoning of: "Circuit panel unanimously ruled that Congress could regulate the internal manufacture of firearms within Montana because the creation and circulation of such firearms could reasonably be expected to impact the market for firearms nationally."
Seems a bit of stretch if you ask me. I am not sure I would call that interstate commerce.
Wickard v Filburn would have a word with you. It's why intrastate drug sales or making your own machine gun still spells federal jail time. The federal government has decided basically anything involving producing/consuming/possessing goods, even for your own consumption in state never entering commerce, is interstate commerce.
Something being interstate commerce does not prevent states from legislating on it. Under that logic, states couldn't regulate the sale of anything produced in another state, which is obviously untrue.
Basically everything is interstate commerce. See Wickard v Filburn. It's why growing your own pot or making your own machine gun earns you federal jail time, even if they never enter commerce or leave the state. Basically whether commerce leaves state lines means nothing in terms of whether there is interstate commerce; even growing your own crops to feed to your own animals is considered interstate commerce.
Whether a wire left the state means dick to whether the federal government has constitutional authority over it, per supreme court.
Refer to Wickard v Filburn. Whether a transaction leaves the state doesn't mean dick to interstate commerce clause. The interstate commerce is interpreted to mean basically any possession/production/consumption of goods regardless if they leave the state or even enter commerce. Supreme court decided even growing crops for use on animals on your own land is interstate commerce.
This is the reason why you can catch a federal charge for growing your own pot or making your own machine gun, despite it never leaving your property nor any desire or act to enter commerce/trade. Even merely _where_ you store your goods for personal non-commercial use in your own state is considered interstate commerce, a la Gun-Free School Zone Act.
You of course can argue that anything and everything affects interstate commerce, but ... in 1995 in Lopez the Court held that, no, there are truly local things, and laws not dealing with commerce (like the gun-free zone for schools act that was struck down at that time) lack authorization from the Constitution.
And this view was again reinforced in Morrision. Congress tried to use the Commerce clause to criminalize rape against women. The Court held that even though violence against women surely has some effect on the economy, that is very far from substantial. Even if viewed in the aggregate.
Our freedoms suffer some, sure, but the wheat (and other) market(s) got saner, which helped a lot of people, greatly expanding their freedoms. (On the other hand Wickard is used to regulate medical marijuana, which takes away some freedom.) But, but... it also allowed (and would allow) fixing healthcare, which was (would be) a big freedom improvent.
It is one of the greatest blunders of the constitution.
Everything is interstate commerce.
Yes and yes. Unfortunately that ship sailed a long long time ago.
E.g. in 1942 the US Supreme Court held in a unanimous opinion that a farmer growing wheat to feed his own animals on his own farm could be regulated as interstate commerce.
More than 50 years later, the Court walked that back, very slightly. But the decision in 1995 was 5-4. This more recent decision would doubtlessly upset many on HN once they learn that it limited the ability of the US government to ban possession of handguns near schools.
This is very analogous to Wickard v Filbern [1] which basically says that intrastate commerce is interstate commerce if that commerce affects interstate commerce. It is very much absurd on it's face and a thinly veiled power grab by the federal government. It's like saying my breathing affects the air quality and so I must be cognizant of others when I breathe.
I don't find the idea useful to anyone but the unscrupulous. I find it very easy to draw the line. If I design something and publish it and people find it useful and put it to use that's clearly not commerce, that's just creativity.
Isn't this because guns are legal at the federal level, and thus not allowing them to transit through a state would be a violation of interstate commerce?
It's hyperbole to say everything effects interstate commerce as a legal matter. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Lopez, where the court struck down the Federal Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990.
On the other hand, that's a really low bar for the Federal government to meet. Especially in light of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzales_v._Raich, where the court upheld Federal criminal prohibition of homegrown marijuana for personal use, and where everybody stipulated (IIRC) that her marijuana wouldn't enter the stream of commerce. Note that both Kennedy and Scalia upheld Federal powers here, which is why their vehement opposition to Obamacare's individual mandate was so hypocritical.
I thought that since you can nearly always draw a connection between almost any economic activity and stove kind of effect on interstate commerce, the commerce clause isn't much of a restriction these days?
It's an interesting turn, because initially the concept of interstate commerce was very broadly defined to include production designated for personal, non-market consumption only, using the argument that the very act of producing it lessened the market for the product.
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