
Originally Posted by
Buckingham
If the Feds are using the interstate commerce clause to ban certain guns, would not a state regulated business be allowed to manufacture and sell MGs only to state residents? IE, no interstate commerce? I suspect the answer is going to hurt my head so am taking the aspirin now.
Well, you would think so. And Angel Raich would have thought so too. But SCOTUS says that when the feds wish to implement a comprehensive interstate commerce scheme they can regulate intrastate commerce too if necessary to preserve the integrity of the interstate plan. Or as Chief Judge Kozinski said "[t]herefore, the fact that Raich did not herself affect interstate commerce was of no moment; when Congress makes an interstate omelet, it is entitled to break a few intrastate eggs."
Now Ms. Raich's case was a little different in that it involved medical marijuana, not firearms, and the court found that marijuana is "fungible" - you can't tell interstate marijuana from intrastate marijuana - so it may not be a direct parallel.
In any event, in his dissent against the majority holding (which found that the federal pot laws can regulate even purely intrastate pot) Justice Thomas penned one of my favorite lines ever written by a justice - and one that is, sadly, all too true:
Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything–and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers. -- Justice Thomas, dissenting, ALBERTO R. GONZALES, ATTORNEY GENERAL, et al., PETITIONERS v. ANGEL McCLARY RAICH et al.
Not much more can be said.