Free Republic

Judge Alito's Dissent Arguing That The Federal Machine Gun Ban Is Unconstitutional Is Right-Wing Judicial Activism And A Threat To Federal Gun Laws Judge Samuel Alito's dissent in U.S. v. Rybar, 103 F.3d 273 (3rd Cir. 1996), argued that federal restrictions on machine gun possession amounted to an unconstitutional exercise of Congressional power under the Commerce Clause. His dissent is right-wing judicial activism at its worst. Judge Alito demonstrated no respect for the considered judgment of Congress in seeking to protect the public from the obvious threat to public safety from fully automatic weapons. Instead, his opinion attempted to erect...

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...

In other words, the majority argues in effect that the private, purely intrastate possession of machine guns has a substantial effect on the interstate machine gun market. This theory, if accepted, would go far toward converting Congress's authority to regulate interstate commerce into "a plenary police power." Lopez, --- U.S. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1633. If there is any sort of interstate market for a commodity--and I think that it is safe to assume that there is some sort of interstate market for practically everything--then the purely intrastate possession of that item will have an effect on that market,...