Guy Smith wrote:
But doesn't that suggest, rather paradoxically, that while
Congress has too little power to do a small thing, it has
sufficient power to do a larger one?
I don't see the paradox myself. Much of the constitutional debates
surrounded local (state) rights and the desire of people to govern
themselves according to local standards and custom (and the fear that the
new federal government would run rough shod over such).
Per Lopez, Commerce Clause, ad nausium: if the commerce in question has
substantial effects on commerce between the states (large thing), Congress
has the regulatory prerogative (ignoring of course the blatant abuse of
"substantial effect" and other assaults on the clear cut meaning of the
Commerce Clause). But if a small geographic application of law has little
or no effect on commerce, much less interstate commerce, then the feds have
no appointed powers. This seems to adhere to the original desire to defer
to local autonomy.
And yet, growing your own weed, in your own back yard, for your own use, as
permitted by state law is a federal offense. Now there is a paradox.
-----------------
Guy Smith
Author, Gun Facts
www.GunFacts.info
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
As much as Raich offends me, I don't see that it contradicts the Wickard
precedent. In both
cases, it involves growing a crop for your own consumption, but for
which there is a large and
real interstate market. Admittedly, marijuana is not subject to federal
marketing orders, unlike
the crop in the Wickard case. Still, the same reasoning of Wickard
applies: by withdrawing
from the interstate market for marijuana, Raich et. al. unquestionably
contribute to an alteration of the
dynamics of the interstate market for marijuana.
I think the dissent pointing out that by this reasoning, EVERYTHING can
be regulated because
almost everything has some economic element to it. I just had a well
drilled for my new home.
The water coming out of that well will be extremely pure. I will no
longer buy Brita water
filters. I will no longer buy any of the bottled still waters. Along
with several million other
well owners, we have made a substantial change in the interstate market
for Brita water filters
and bottled still water. I believe that using the Wickard and Raich
precedents, if Congress
decided to prohibit me from consuming more than 50 gallons of well water
a month for drinking
purposes, they could pull out the "interstate commerce" argument, and
make it stick. Only
the rationality of the political process will protect me.
To bring this back to guns: it is very clear that the largely liberal
wing of the Court decided Raich
the way that they did because they knew full well that vast swarms of
federal statutes would be
in serious danger. I recall that there was a 9th Circuit case a year or
two ago involving someone
in Arizona who tried to use the Lopez decision to argue that machine
guns that he made at home,
and did not sell, were not engaged in interstate commerce, and therefore
were exempt from
federal regulation. I don't remember what the result was. (But I think
the defendant did something
rather more stupid, involving hiring a hit man to kill a federal judge,
which became a bigger problem
than the NFA violation.)
Clayton E. Cramer
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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