Utah to secede (from federal gun laws)

[Vejut]

Salt Lake Tribune

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Senate OKs bill exempting Utah-made guns from firearms laws

By Robert Gehrke

The Salt Lake Tribune
Updated: 02/02/2010 04:22:42 PM MST

The Utah Senate tentatively declared its independence from federal firearms laws Tuesday. Whether that defiance withstands a legal challenge remains to be seen.

Legislation sponsored by Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, would exempt firearms manufactured and sold within Utah from any federal regulations, including criminal-background checks and bans on certain types of weapons.

It is not a gun bill, Dayton said, but rather about states' rights. Montana and Tennessee have enacted nearly identical laws and, she said, 20 other states are considering such legislation.

"This is not a bill about the status quo," Dayton said. "It is a bill about challenging the status quo, and the states have a duty to enact legislation that challenges the courts when there has been legislation that infringes or hurts the rights of the citizen."

The Montana law has been challenged in court, and Utah's legislative attorneys have warned there is a high likelihood that Dayton's bill would not withstand constitutional scrutiny.

Senate Minority Leader Pat Jones, D-Holladay, said the cost of defending the legislation is unnecessary.

"This year in particular our budget is so very tight we're looking for every single penny we can possibly scrape up to pay for people with disabilities and public education," she said. "I'm concerned about the cost to our state in defending a bill like this."

The Senate gave tentative approval to the measure in a
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19-10 vote, with all eight Democrats voting against the measure, along with Sens. Lyle Hillyard, R-Logan, and John Valentine, R-Orem, both of whom are attorneys.

The Senate is likely to give the measure final approval and send it to the House later this week.

Isn't this (and admittedly, also the California drug laws on marijuana) something of a constitutional violation (article VI specifically)? It kinda seems like some of these people long for the good old days of the Articles of Confederation.

[Alyeska]

They are merely looking for a test case to reach the Supreme Court.

[Rogue 9]

We settled this in 1832 when South Carolina tried it over tariffs. It won't fly.

[Sea Skimmer]

We settled this in 1832 when South Carolina tried it over tariffs. It won't fly.

No we didn’t. Tariffs, and the uniformity of them are covered as specific constitutional power of the US federal government. No room for interpretation. Gun control however is not a specifically defined power.

The federal government gets its power to regulate guns from interpreting the interstate commerce clause as most guns are shipped across state lines. A gun manufactured in a state, and sold and kept in that state is not interstate commerce. A bunch of cases involving this specific issue had been proposed to the Supreme Court in recent years, and every single time they’ve refused to hear it. They have ruled on similar cases involving legalized pot sales, in which it was stated that congress could regulate commerce within a state only if it stood to seriously effect interstate commerce, which still leaves a lot of room for interpreting. However that decision even to that limited effect was still a 5-4 split, which means everyone is itching to challenge it again. This is pretty much Utah forcing the courts hand to hear such a case on gun control.

[Samuel]

in which it was stated that congress could regulate commerce within a state only if it stood to seriously effect interstate commerce, which still leaves a lot of room for interpreting.

So only if they sell enough guns to affect the price and production of guns in other states? That seems an... odd way to define things.

Where does the federal government get the power to require backround checks because the article mentions they are opposing them as well.

[Sea Skimmer]

So only if they sell enough guns to affect the price and production of guns in other states? That seems an... odd way to define things.

That would be one way to interpret it. Another way would just be if the likelihood of the gun being transferred out of state is high. That was the basis for allowing the federal ban on pot growing in California to stand. But you can see just from these two possibilities, you have a lot of room to interpret, and you also have room for a state to defend its own laws in court. Especially for an item like a machine gun which is not disposable, and which the state could still tightly control the transfer under its own laws.

The main issue really is not that many people think machine guns should not be regulated, but that the federal government banned the introduction of new machine guns into the pool of legal weapons. That law really had no point at all, it certainly had nothing to do with crime.

Where does the federal government get the power to require backround checks because the article mentions they are opposing them as well.

Interstate commerce clause too. That clause is used by the Feds to gain well… most powers. Just about anything economic that isn’t spelled out in the constitution is gained that way. That’s why the Supreme Court is very reluctant to hear cases like this, the text of a ruling would be directly applicable to a broad range of other subjects. But making this an issue of a state vs. the feds, rather then a private citizen vs. the feds make it pretty hard to ignore. Like Alyeska said, this is being done to create a test case.