As freepers consider the following material, please note that the ATF might not have become a burden to intrastate commerce if state lawmakers hadn’t foolishly ratified the ill-conceived 17th Amendment, foolishly giving up the voices of the state legislatures in Congress by doing so.
Next, consider that the Founding States had made the first numbered clauses in the Constitution, Sections 1-3 of Article I, evidently a good place to hide them from corrupt Congress, to clarify that all federal legislative powers are vested in the elected members of Congress, not in the executive or judicial branches, or in constitutional undefined federal agencies like the ATF (EPA, etc.).
So Congress has a constitutional monopoly on federal legislative powers whether it wants it or not. And by delegating powers to non-elected third parties like the bureaucrats running the ATF, Congress is wrongly protection federal legislative powers from the wrath of the voters in blatant defiance of Sections 1-3 referenced above imo.
Regarding the ATF, patriots need to learn to do the following every time they hear an issue concerning the corrupt federal government. Patriots need to try to find a clause in Congress’s Article I, Section 8-limited powers which is reasonably related to the issue that they are concerned about. And if they don’t find a related clause, which is probably what will happen with most issues, then they need to wise up to the idea of an unconstitutional law or federal agency that needs to disappear.
And here are some major constitutional negatives about the ATF. First, although the states have delegated to Congress the specific power, via the Commerce Clause, to regulate commerce that is traded across state borders, please consider the following.
Regardless what FDR’s thug justices wanted everybody to believe about the scope of Congress’s Commerce Clause powers when it wrongly decided Wickard v. Filburn in corrupt Congress’s favor in 1942 imo, FDR’s justices wrongly ignored that a previous generation of 10th Amendment-respecting justices had clarified the following. The states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate intrastate commerce.
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added].” —Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
So regarding the subject of this thread, the feds minimally have no constitutional authority to regulate over the counter firearms sales imo.
In fact, it is disturbing to note that federal regulations for personal protection firearms seemingly started appearing in the books when Constitution-ignoring socialist FDR was president.
Franklin Roosevelt: The Father of Gun Control
Also, when the 18th Amendment was repealed by the 21st Amendment, not only should the corrupt feds have gotten their big noses out of booze-related intrastate commerce imo, but consider the following. In addition to the Supreme Court historically clarifying that Congress has no Commerce Clause power to regulate intrastate commerce, a later case opinion singles out agriculture as an example category of what feds shouldn’t be regulating, both alcohol and tobacco production falling under agricultural production.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited. None to regulate agricultural production is given, and therefore legislation by Congress for that purpose is forbidden [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Also note that regardless that federal Democrats, RINOs, corrupt justices and institutionally indoctrinated attorneys will argue that if the Constitution doesn’t say that the feds can’t do something then they can do it, the Supreme Court has addressed that foolish idea too. Politically correct interpretations of the Constitution's Supremacy Clause aside, the Court has clarified in broad terms that powers not delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate intrastate commerce in this case, are prohibited to the feds.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Are we having fun yet?
What a mess! 8^P
The 17th Amendment needs to be repealed to keep the corrupt feds out of intrastate commerce.
Thank you so very much for your post. I am in complete agreement that 17A is the singlemost destructive modification to the U.S. Constitution.