Guns manufactured, sold, and used in Montana impact interstate commerce, by reducing demand and transport of guns manufactured outside of Montana.
Guns manufactured, sold and used in Montana affect interstate commerce, because the raw materials and goods (machinery, etc) used in the manufacturing process are, to some measurable degree, mined, milled, manufactured, or otherwise produced outside of Montana; and are delivered to Montana via interstate commerce.
Guns manufactured, sold and used in Montana affect interstate commerce, by using ammunition that may have entered into interstate commerce either directly, or by way of materials used to manufacture it.
Guns manufactured, sold and used in Montana may directly affect or enter into interstate commerce because they may be purchased by people, who outside the state’s after-sale view, may remove them from the state, and even sell them outside the state, if they move out of Montana; take them on an out of state hunting trip; or by other means. Especially true if they use an interstate common carrier; and perhaps in the case of interstate common carrier, even if they only travel within the state.
Remember, it’s a point of law: one may not grow their own chicken feed, if they are a grain farmer, and the ‘own use’ portion of the crop would violate government approved production quotas of the grain, because even though it never leaves the farm, it affects interstate commerce by reducing demand for grain grown off the farm.
As horribly wrong and misconstrued as it is, it is what the Supremes declared the law & Constitution to mean. By precedent, the state would become the grain farmer, and the federal bans would become the approved individual grain quotas, and the defendants become screwed.
The interpretation of Wickard and later, Raich, has left all bounds of reason.
Except for a glimmer of sense in Lopez, the current rulings amount to saying that *everything* affects interstate commerce. Therefore the commerce clause is null and void, because if *everything* is included in the the clause, then there was no reason for the clause at all.
It would have been much simpler to say: The Federal Government has the power to regulate everything.
The current ruling is simply false, a gross oversteping of federal power, and long overdue for pruning.
I am of the opinion that Rule .308 trumps the Commerce Clause. Rule .308 is a direct legal descendant of that ancient legal principle of “phook uuz gies,” and last put into operation in this country by George Washington and a bunch of like-minded fellows.