Quoting from a charging document:
The possession of the charged firearms affected interstate or foreign commerce; that is, before the defendant possessed the charged firearms, it had traveled at some time from one state to another or between any part of the United States and any other country.
If you bought a gun manufactured by SIG, in New Hampshire, from an FFL in New Hampshire, it is still likely to have been shipped out of state for distribution. That would mean it affected interstate commerce.
The state has gone further and said that even if the firearm was made in your state, that you bought it direct from the manufacturer, in person, that the firearm still affected interstate commerce. Their reasoning is that if that firearm were not purchased, you would have purchased a firearm that did cross state or country lines.
Remember the logic of Wickard v. Filburn: intentionally not engaging in interstate commerce affects interstate commerce, and therefore is subject to regulation as interstate commerce.
What’s worse is that this wasn’t even a necessary argument in the case at hand; the Court went out of its way to issue a sweeping ruling that went far beyond the case before it.
Was going to mention that exact case. The ICC and that ruling have been used as cover for so much federal intrusion into day to day life that it makes the mind reel.
Exactly what I was going to say. Surprised we don’t see the commerce clause abused more tbh.
Just tell them you want the hillary clinton defense…. I didnt buy it out of state so therefore I didn’t buy it…. I didn’t “mean too”..
The abuse of the Commerce Clause needs to stop.
It is absolutely ridiculous that the 0bama regime tried to close all the coal fired power plants because wind might cause emissions to cross state lines.
Not surprised they tried to make the argument against guns.
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Can you think of a single item that does not cross state lines in some way? Grow your own vegetables… where did you get the seeds? Oh, you collected them from grown stock your family has had since the Great Depression. Where did they get the seeds? Seriously, unless you can trace the origin of the seeds back to before the establishment of the US, the Government will claim they have the right to regulate them. (Example is stupid, I know, but the point remains.)
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Abuse of the commerce clause MUST stop. And unless we start seeing Courts putting the brakes on the government soon, we will all be players in our own Atlas Shrugged novels.
Excellent points raised above
During the Great Depression our government used that logic to abuse farmers on the grounds that foodstuffs or meat that was not purchased from out of state due to growing it on your own land affected interstate commerce. That logic allowed FEDGOV to dictate what farmers did on their land, even to the point of making them destroy meat animals, their byproducts and crops.
If they can abuse a process, they will abuse that process.