Clayton writes: >> ... >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.
There is a curious negative aspect to this logic. I'd argue that there is no *legal* "large and real interstate market" for marijuana. So "withdrawing" from this market isn't contributing to an alteration of a legal market. If one doesn't purchase marijuana in intra/inter-state commerce because one doesn't use marijuana - that similarly contributes to the alteration ... >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. Or just by stopping to drink pure water you would have had the same effect. >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. Would the same reasoning allow them to require you to drink pure water? >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. IIRC there has been a long standing interpretation that the connection with interstate commerce could include buying the components (including steel stock) via interstate commerce. >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.) --henry schaffer _______________________________________________ To post, send message to [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
