High court's Calif. pot ruling also outlaws homemade machine guns

modbee ^ | 7/1/6 | paul elias

[LouAvul]

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A recent Supreme Court ruling that Congress can ban homegrown marijuana for medical use in California led Friday to the reinstatement of an Arizona man's overturned conviction for having homemade machine guns.

Prosecutors in both cases invoked the Constitution's interstate commerce clause, despite the fact that the cases centered on items that were homemade, or homegrown, and didn't involve commerce or crossing state lines. The courts ruled, however, that the items still can affect interstate commerce and therefore can be regulated by federal law.

In the machine gun case, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday reinstated the convictions of Robert Wilson Stewart, 67, of Mesa, Ariz. The three-judge panel reversed its own previous decision to overturn the convictions because he never tried to sell his weapons or transport them over state lines.

Federal agents raided Stewart's house in June 2000 and found five machine guns, which Stewart argued did not violate the congressionally mandated ban on certain assault weapons because they were homemade and not for sale. The appellate court initially agreed with Stewart and overturned his convictions in 2003, ruling the interstate commerce clause did not apply.

The three-judge panel, however, was ordered by the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision after the justices ruled in 2005 that the federal government could prosecute medical marijuana users and their suppliers even if their activity was confined to California.

In the marijuana case, brought by Oakland resident Angel Raich, the majority of Supreme Court justices ruled that the interstate commerce clause makes California's medical marijuana law illegal. The court said homegrown marijuana confined to the state still can affect the entire national market for the drug, allowing for federal regulation.

The same rationale was applied by the appeals court in the homemade machine gun case.

[sionnsar]

The Republic is dead.

Just another nail in the coffin.

[Mount Athos]

What is the logic behind applying the interstate commerce clause? Seems like a majority of federal overreaching comes from misapplying this.

[tpaine]

DustyMoment wrote:

Not sure I'm making that connection.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


The connection was explained here:


FR Poll Thread: Does the Interstate Commerce Clause authorize prohibition of drugs and firearms?

Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1515174/posts


--- Not that a lot of those here 'got it'.

[mugs99]

What is the logic behind applying the interstate commerce clause? Seems like a majority of federal overreaching comes from misapplying this.

The editorial board of The New York Times:
We take very seriously the court's concern about protecting the Commerce Clause, the vital constitutional principle that has allowed the federal government to thwart evils like child labor and segregation.
The dissenters in the 6-to-3 decision, Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice William Rehnquist, opened the door for conservatives who want to sharply reduce Congress's use of its power to regulate and protect interstate commerce. These conservatives want to turn the clock back to before the New Deal, when workers were exploited, factories polluted at will and the elderly faced insecure retirements.

The editorial board of The Wasington Post:
The true importance of Raich has nothing to do with drugs; A Supreme Court decision disallowing federal authority in this area would have been a disaster in areas ranging from civil rights enforcement to environmental protection.
The Constitution's commerce clause, which provided the foundation for the court's ruling in this case, is the foundation of the modern regulatory state, underpinning since the New Deal huge swaths of federal law: worker protections, just about all federal environmental law, laws prohibiting racial discrimination in private-sector employment.

The editorial board of The New Republic:
This week, in the most important federalism decision of the year, the Supreme Court upheld Congress's power to ban the local cultivation and use of medical marijuana. The Supreme Court's deference to Congress's broad power to regulate the economy is an occasion to celebrate.
Had the Court ruled otherwise, as a group of libertarian judicial activists urged, it would have encouraged a radical assault on Congress's power to regulate a host of issues, including crime and workplace safety. But the news was not all good: An unusual coalition of three justices--Sandra Day O'Connor, William Rehnquist, and Clarence Thomas--dissented from the ruling, suggesting that anti-regulatory forces on the Court remain strong.
.

[Jack Black]

Proposed: Ammendment XXVIII; 1.The commerce clause and general welfare clauses are hereby stricken from the Constitution. 2. All laws, regulations, government bodies, commissions and entities relying in whole or in part on these striken clauses are here null and void and rescinded.

[Wolfie]

Chickens meet Roost ping.

[Wolfie]

You have to understand the tortured logic of Raich. Because this guy built his own machine gun, he won't have to buy one (even a legal pre-ban version). Therefore, interstate commerce is affected, and the Commerce Clause applied.

[tpaine]

Speaking of chicken roosts, --- where is bobbie and his defense of ~any~ level of government having the power to prohibit most ~any~thing?

[robertpaulsen]

"Seems like a majority of federal overreaching comes from misapplying this."

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner.

You are correct. There's nothing wrong with the Commerce Clause -- it's working exactly how it was intended. What's wrong is a Congress that wants to use it to regulate everything from the minimum wage to spousal abuse.

Fortunately, we the people have control over that -- every two years we elect the people who write these laws. We can simply elect those who will write the laws the way we want them. (By "we" I mean "we the majority", whoever that is. It may not be "us" if you get my drift).

Those who want and expect five activist justices on the U.S. Supreme Court to do their work for them are acting like helpless juveniles. Get out the vote and throw out the lawmakers that are writing this overreaching legislation. Now, that may be a little more work than sitting at a keyboard typing "But that's unconstitutional" every time a new law is passed, but that is the way to solve the problem.

[gcruse]

Great idea.

[Wolfie]

Amen.

[gondramB]

>>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A recent Supreme Court ruling that Congress can ban homegrown marijuana for medical use in California led Friday to the reinstatement of an Arizona man's overturned conviction for having homemade machine guns.<<

Well sure - if the interstate commerce clause give the federal government over personal issues even when there is no interstate commerce it would apply to lots of things.... and be nutty.

[robertpaulsen]

"Well sure - if the interstate commerce clause give the federal government over personal issues even when there is no interstate commerce it would apply to lots of things.... and be nutty."

Congress (via the FAA) regulates the interstate airlines -- cruising altitudes, speeds, air corridors, landing patterns, etc. Are you saying they may not regulate the purely intrastate flight of a private pilot when his flying has a substantial effect on the interstate commerce Congress is regulating?

The Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. That's it. If a local activity has a substantial effect on the interstate commerce that Congress is currently regulating, then Congress has the power, under the Necessary and Proper Clause to write legislation controlling that activity. Without that ability, states or individuals could undermine and subvert Congress' authority. Why even give Congress the power?

The Commerce Clause was meant to be powerful. The problem lies with a Congress abusing that power. The solution is for the people to send a message to Congress that we will not tolerate these intrusions.

[tet68]

The solution is for the people to send a message to Congress that we will not tolerate these intrusions.

And that message would be what ?

[epow]

So, apparently this new and supposedly more originalist Court intends to continue allowing the the commerce clause to be grossly misused to falsely "legitimize" anything the feds want to do to control every aspect of our lives. I guess the right and proper Court decision of a few years ago which overturned a federal law concerning guns in school zones that depended on the commerce clause for it's legitimacy was just an anomaly handed down of an off day for the Court.

Now it's back to business as usual for the Court, IOW further stripping away the protections of our liberties that the authors designed into our Constitution.

[robertpaulsen]

That's an argument that could have been used in Raich but it wasn't.

Justice Stevens wrote for the majority, "Congress can regulate purely intrastate activity ... if it concludes that failure to regulate that class of activity would undercut the regulation of the interstate market in that commodity."

Justice Scalia wrote in his concurrence, "... the commerce power permits Congress ... to facilitate interstate commerce by eliminating potential obstructions, and to restrict it by eliminating potential stimulants."

[robertpaulsen]

"And that message would be what ?"

We will vote for your opponent in the next election because he more truly represents our interests.

[MarkL]

Given this sort of ruling, I'd like to know exactly what sort of act or product does not, in some tortuous way, effect interstat commerce...

For instance, I suppose that having a "homemade machine gun" effects interstate commerce by not having to buy an illegal machinegun from out of state.

And having homegrown pot depresses the economy of another state, or even another country, like Mexico, since you don't have to buy the pot from out of state...

Mark

[MarkL]

What is the logic behind applying the interstate commerce clause? Seems like a majority of federal overreaching comes from misapplying this.

That IS the "logic." The Constitution is a set of rules that strictly defines what the government is and is not allowed to do. The overly broad interpretation of the ICC allows the federal government to intervene in areas of life where the Consitution doesn't allow the federal government to do so. It's sort of like "a living Constitution," where the Constitution means what ever the person interpreting it wants it to mean: And they've got the deadly force to back up that meaning.

Mark

[Wolfie]

Wordy prose, to be sure, but no different from what I said.