States rights and regulating commerce
I’ve mentioned the bill before but I am remiss in mentioning that both the house and senate have passed the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act. This is he bill that, essentially, is a snub to the federal government and its power to regulate everything because everything is incidentally involved in Interstate commerce. But in this particular case, it’s about guns. The bill says that firearms and parts made in Tennessee are not subject to federal law. Given that Tennessee does its own background checks, one might wonder why that matters. Here’s the bill. A couple of other states have passed similar bills and a lot of states have this bill in the works. And the bills, essentially, sets to set up a legal challenge such as what’s happening in Montana.
The interesting thing about Tennessee’s bill is that while it excludes machine guns (as other states’ similar bills have done), it defines sound suppressors as accessories and would exempt them from federal regulations, including the NFA tax and approval.
June 9th, 2009 at 10:09 am
If this gets signed into law, I’m buying land in TN.
June 9th, 2009 at 10:13 am
The exercise of sovereignty by states vis a vis the Federal government is something we will hopefully see with increasing frequency.
It is resonating with a lot of people.
Note to Congress: The Interstate Commerce clause still exists, and it doesn’t include everything the Federal government wishes to regulate.
June 9th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Man, Tennesseee is looking better and better. Are you guys getting flooded with ppl from New England?
June 9th, 2009 at 10:48 am
I hope not.
June 9th, 2009 at 11:06 am
For this to have any effect, wouldn’t Wickard v. Filburn have to be overruled? So long as the goods are of a kind that are part of regular interstate commerce, the feds seem to think they can regulate it.
June 9th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Wolfwood: Maybe not. Wickard v. Filburn (from memory) was based on the fedgov trying to implement nationwide price control, which can be argued _is_ commerce-related.
Attempting to impose non-commerce-related restrictions on something purely in-state simply because it (or some component of it) may at some time have been involved in interstate commerce may be distinct enough that precedent wasn’t created.
June 9th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Studying Wickard v. Filburn in Constitutional Law (many, many years ago) had a profound impact on me as a law student.
Seeing the Supreme Court arrive at such a political, conclusion-driven holding, and the utterly convoluted logic that it used to achieve its goal, made me lose respect for the Supteme Court as an institution.
It was a tremendous letdown, because I had previously (and very naively, I might add) assumed that the Court would speak dispassionately and wisely on all Constitutional matters.
Boy was I let down.
June 9th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
“Are you guys getting flooded with ppl from New England?”
Unfortunately, the only one I know of occupies the governor’s office.