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FR Poll Thread: Does the Interstate Commerce Clause authorize prohibition of drugs and firearms?
Free Republic ^ | 11-3-05

Posted on 11/03/2005 2:24:08 PM PST by inquest

There's a new poll up on the side. Do you think the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution authorizes federal laws against narcotics and firearms? Now lest everyone forget, this isn't asking whether you personally agree with such laws. It's about whether your honest reading of the Constitution can justify them.

While you're thinking it over, it might help to reflect on what James Madison had to say about federal power over interstate commerce:

Being in the same terms with the power over foreign commerce, the same extent, if taken literally, would belong to it. Yet it is very certain that it grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government, in which alone, however, the remedial power could be lodged.
I'll be looking forward to your comments.


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: alito; banglist; commerce; commerceclause; frpoll; herecomesmrleroy; interstate; interstatecommerce; madison; no; scotus; thatmrleroytoyou; wodlist
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To: elbucko
Under a "states' rights" confiscation of your firearms, the feds would not be able to stop a house by house search by state authorities.

But the people of the state would never tolerate something like that.

The state would glean information from state hunting license records, gun shop records, the records of other states and a reciprocal agreement by states to share firearm related information.

As if Wyoming would ever help Massachusetts enforce its gun-control laws? Not too likely.

41 posted on 11/04/2005 11:52:56 AM PST by inquest (FTAA delenda est)
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To: inquest
But the people of the state would never tolerate something like that.

Are you willing to bet your life on that? Which would you prefer, a manufacturers guarantee or a dealers service warranty? (Fed vs state)

As if Wyoming would ever help Massachusetts enforce its gun-control laws?

Probably not, but I am sure that the states of Washington, California, Oregon, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, etc., would be more than willing to share information. If your firearm was manufactured in one of these states, your own state could get the desired information.

The point I am politely, but obliquely, trying to make is that no level of government, states in particular, can be trusted with anyones basic rights.

42 posted on 11/04/2005 12:36:34 PM PST by elbucko
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To: elbucko
[But the people of the state would never tolerate something like that.]

Are you willing to bet your life on that?

Considering that it would already be happening if the people were willing to tolerate it, the answer's pretty clear. The trick to oppressing people is not to do it in a way that makes most of them notice. The people in power already know that most people, even in liberal states, are generally favorably disposed toward gun rights, which is why even Democrat politicians (think Kerry) will pay lip service to it. It's just that they're able to keep people mostly distracted on other issues to keep them from raising too much of a stink over it. But do something like what you describe, and a lot of politicians will be out of a job permanently (at the very least).

Probably not, but I am sure that the states of Washington, California, Oregon, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, etc., would be more than willing to share information. If your firearm was manufactured in one of these states, your own state could get the desired information.

Once a firearm is manufactured and exported to another state, the state that it came from will no longer be able to know what becomes of it. So a gun is manufactred in Oregon and then shipped to a retail outlet in Wyoming. Oregon is not going to know who bought it from the retailer.

43 posted on 11/04/2005 12:50:03 PM PST by inquest (FTAA delenda est)
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To: MileHi

Call Wickard whatever you want, but there is not now and will not by any plausible chain of events ever be a Supreme Court majority to overturn Wickard and readopt the commerce clause interpretation of Schecter. Claiming that it ought to happen is beside the point. In my view, we are misdirected from the goal of restraining federal power by trying to re-fight lost battles and lost causes.


44 posted on 11/04/2005 3:00:49 PM PST by Rockingham
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To: TKDietz

The subject is much more complicated than you are willing to recognize. Read the full body of major commerce clause cases, beginning with Gibbons v. Ogden. Even Justice Thomas, whose views cannot be ignored in this context, seems uncertain just how far to go in revisiting prior commerce clause cases.

I submit that with the rule of Gibbons v. Ogden and the nature of modern commerce, something like current decisional law principles is inevitable unless some other principle in defense of state authority is contrived. For decades, that was the dual sovereignty doctrine, and I think that a revival of it is a more promising avenue than trying to overturn two centuries of commerce clause case decisions.


45 posted on 11/04/2005 3:14:19 PM PST by Rockingham
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To: inquest
And even at that, before the feds can even think having jurisdiction under the Constitution, there needs to be strong evidence, not only that someone intended to distribute it, but intended to distribute it across state lines.

I think it would be rather hard for the defendant to seriously argue that the currency was intended to be given to unsuspecting people and yet not intended to cross state lines. Further, since Congress has the authority to coin money and regulate the value thereof, the fact that counterfeit money that's circulated will dilute the value of real money would suffice.

46 posted on 11/04/2005 5:11:01 PM PST by supercat (Don't fix blame--FIX THE PROBLEM.)
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To: elbucko

As long as that criminalization does not infringe on US constitutional rights and federal laws, I don't see any restrictions that can be imposed on the state's elected bodies.


47 posted on 11/04/2005 6:21:27 PM PST by indianrightwinger
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To: elbucko
no level of government, states in particular, can be trusted with anyones basic rights.

Amen! But I think it stands to reason, and the evidence supports, that the federal government will go bad before all 50 states will.

48 posted on 11/04/2005 6:28:46 PM PST by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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To: Reagan Man
The 1991 SCOTUS decision in Touby v USA was unanimous and upheld the CSA.

SCOTUS has repeatedly upheld Row v Wade. What's your point?

49 posted on 11/04/2005 6:31:28 PM PST by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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To: Reagan Man
Row --> Roe
50 posted on 11/04/2005 6:32:24 PM PST by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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To: Reagan Man
The 1991 SCOTUS decision in Touby v USA was unanimous and upheld the CSA.

A dubious claim at best since plaintiffs didn't challenge the constitutionality of the CSA as a whole.

51 posted on 11/04/2005 6:36:03 PM PST by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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To: Rockingham
the trend of modern business is to prefer one national standard and authority instead of fifty or more different ones.

I care less about what modern business prefers than what the Constitution demands ... but then, I'm a conservative.

52 posted on 11/04/2005 6:39:15 PM PST by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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To: Rockingham
My take is that guns in schools are a local matter, but marijuana can be suppressed by the federal government based on the commerce clause.

Joe grows pot in his back yard and sells some to his next-door neighbor ... how is that not a local matter?

53 posted on 11/04/2005 6:41:08 PM PST by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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To: inquest

The answer, quite simply, is no.


54 posted on 11/04/2005 6:52:40 PM PST by Tench_Coxe
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To: Tench_Coxe
Read the whole thread ... it's depressing how many people disagree and yet consider themselves "conservative."
55 posted on 11/04/2005 6:55:41 PM PST by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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To: Reagan Man
Congress can legislate under the Commerce Clause.

In your opinion, is the "substantial effects" test consistent with the original intent of the Commerce Clause?

56 posted on 11/04/2005 7:09:23 PM PST by Ken H
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To: supercat
Currency? We were talking about narcotics.
57 posted on 11/04/2005 7:21:13 PM PST by inquest (FTAA delenda est)
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To: Know your rights
Member Opinion

No 85.3% 869
Undecided/Pass 10.2% 104
Yes 4.5% 46

58 posted on 11/04/2005 7:23:17 PM PST by Ken H
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To: Ken H
Somehow I missed that this was an actual FR poll. The WODerator must be pissed that the poll even went up, to say nothing of its results. (But 46 Yes votes is still 46 too many.)
59 posted on 11/04/2005 7:28:43 PM PST by Know your rights (The modern enlightened liberal doesn't care what you believe as long as you don't really believe it.)
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To: Know your rights
The bare terms of the Constitution often leaving room for uncertainty, originalists and conservatives commonly turn to the Federalist Papers and Madison's Notes on the Constitutional Convention for further insight. I submit that a fair reading of the following supports my view of the federal commerce power:

FEDERALIST No. 22
Other Defects of the Present Confederation
From the New York Packet.
Friday, December 14, 1787.

HAMILTON

The want of a power to regulate commerce is by all parties allowed to be of the number [of defects of the Confederation]. The utility of such a power has been anticipated under the first head of our inquiries; and for this reason, as well as from the universal conviction entertained upon the subject, little need be added in this place. It is indeed evident, on the most superficial view, that there is no object, either as it respects the interests of trade or finance, that more strongly demands a federal superintendence.

Tuesday September 15, 1787

Mr. MADISON. Whether the States are now restrained from laying tonnage duties depends on the extent of the power "to regulate commerce." These terms are vague, but seem to exclude this power of the States. . . . He was more & more convinced that the regulation of Commerce was in its nature indivisible and ought to be wholly under one authority.

Mr. SHERMAN. The power of the U. States to regulate trade being supreme can controul interferences of the State regulations when such interferences happen; so that there is no danger to be apprehended from a concurrent jurisdiction.
60 posted on 11/04/2005 8:27:34 PM PST by Rockingham
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