USA v Rybar (3rd circuit)

I tried unsuccessfully to find the complete opinion including Judge Rybar's dissent on this case involving the interstate commerce clause and machine guns. It's one of the opinions that the opposition is using against him. I wish there was a site with all the opinions that are dragged out during the confirmation hearings that we can access for free. At Findlaw all I could find is a portion of the decision. Same at the 3rd Circuit because it’s an older decision. You can't trust the MSM to accurately describe the decisions or the legal points. You should be able to but you can't and are foolish if you do.

Is this the findlaw article you found? http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/5th/9910331cr0.html It sure does look like the complete decision. Question: You said you wanted Judge Ryber's dissent but I gues you meant Alito

ALITO, Circuit Judge, dissenting: Was United States v. Lopez, --- U.S. ----, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995), a constitutional freak? Or did it signify that the Commerce Clause still imposes some meaningful limits on congressional power? The statutory provision challenged in this case, the portion of 18 U.S.C. section 922(o) that generally prohibits the purely intrastate possession [Footnote 1] of a machine gun, is the closest extant relative of the statute struck down in Lopez, 18 U.S.C. section 922(q)(1)(A), which made it a federal offense knowingly to possess a firearm in a school zone. Both are criminal statutes that regulate the purely intrastate possession of firearms. Both statutes, departing from the mold of prior federal criminal statutes governing firearms possession, lack a jurisdictional element, [Footnote 2] that is, they do not require federal prosecutors to prove that the firearms were possessed in or affecting interstate commerce. Compare, e.g., 18 U.S.C. section 922(d). And in passing both statutes, Congress made no findings regarding the link between the intrastate activity regulated by these laws and interstate commerce. If Lopez does not govern this case, then it may well be a precedent that is strictly limited to its own peculiar circumstances. That may be what the majority here would like, see Maj. Op. at ---- (citation omitted) ("challenges based on Lopez '[a]lmost invariably' fail"), but our responsibility is to apply Supreme Court precedent. That responsibility, it seems to me, requires us to invalidate the statutory provision at issue here in its present form. This would not preclude adequate regulation of the private possession of machine guns. Needless to say, the Commerce Clause does not prevent the states from regulating machine gun possession, as all of the jurisdictions within our circuit have done. See Del.Code Ann. tit. 11, section 1444 (1995); N.J.Stat.Ann. section 2C:39-5a (West 1995); 18 Pa.Cons.Stat.Ann. section 908 (1996); V.I.Code Ann. tit. 14, section 2253 (1994). Moreover, the statute challenged here would satisfy the demands of the Commerce Clause if Congress simply added a jurisdictional element--a common feature of federal laws in this field and one that has not posed any noticeable problems for federal law enforcement. In addition, as I explain below, 18 U.S.C. section 922(o) might be sustainable in its current form if Congress made findings that the purely intrastate possession of machine guns has a substantial effect on interstate commerce or if Congress or the Executive assembled empirical evidence documenting such a link. If, as the government and the majority baldly insist, the purely intrastate possession of machine guns has such an effect, these steps are not too much to demand to protect our system of constitutional federalism.

Conservatives are interested in this case due to
Commerce Clause, and perhaps 2nd Amendment.

Liberals are interested strictly due to the
sensationalist machine gun angle.

Knowing the CC implications won't help you win
arguments with the moonbats.

Ask them:
What was the law prior to the ban?
How many crimes were committed with legal MGs under that law?
(find out the answers before asking, of course)

The ban was a purely symbolic act, that penalized the
law-abiding, and had zero effect on MG crime. Stolen,
smuggled and unregistered converted MGs were just as
illegal before the ban as after it. Had the ban been
found unconstitutional, likewise there would have been
zero effect on MG crime.

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