Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Opponents of gun control are trying a new legislative tactic to skirt federal laws regulating the sale of firearms. Lawmakers in Montana and Tennessee have adopted legislation stating that guns or ammunition manufactured in these states and that remain there are “not subject to federal law.” Legislatures in Texas, Alaska, Minnesota, South Carolina, Florida, Arizona and Colorado are considering similar legislation.
To declare local gun industries are exempt from federal law would appear to be unconstitutional, says Dennis Henigan, vice president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “Under the Constitution, Congress has certain enumerated powers, including the power ‘to regulate Commerce . . . among the several states,’” writes Henigan. He also points out that recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings have reaffirmed the power of the federal government to regulate “intrastate activity involving a product, if it rationally concludes that to leave such activity unregulated would undercut its regulation of interstate commerce in the product.”
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Guns in Montana and Tennessee: Is Secession Next? (by Dennis Henigan, Huffington Post)
Montana Gun Law Targets States’ Rights Clash (by Kahrin Deines, Associated Press)
House Bill No. 246 (Montana Legislature)
Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act (SB 1644) (Tennessee Legislature)
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