Montana Law to Challenge ICC Abuse

[Kennedy 0]

http://data.opi.state.mt.us/bills/2005/billhtml/HB0366.htm

The Montana Firearms Freedom bill, HB 366, has been scheduled for public hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, beginning at 8 AM, on Friday, 1/28. This is the bill whereby the Legislature declares that any firearms made in Montana and retained in Montana are not subject to any federal regulation under the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce. This bill is basically a Tenth Amendment challenge to Congress's commerce clause power, using firearms as the vehicle for the challenge.

Isn't anyone else tired of them using the Interstate Commerce Clause to cover every interaction, including non-commerical and intrastate?

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Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
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[JohnMitchell 16]

Remind me to move to Montana.

[rushmc 23]

This one is going to be fun to watch!

Go Montana!!

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[EricTheRed 0]

My crystal ball sees several new machine shops opening in Montana...

illegible usually

[kallend 2,027]

How many times have 10th Amendment challenges been successful? I was under the impression that the Feds run roughshod over it and the Supremes ignore it.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[steve1 5]

Quote

My crystal ball sees several new machine shops opening in Montana...

I wasn't aware of this. Kimber firearms are now being manufactured in Stevensville, Mt. (where I jump). Sounds like a good law to me....Steve1

[TomAiello 26]

Didn't a court in Texas strike down a school zone drug regulation based on ICC powers?

At any rate, I think the feds have gone way beyond what was intended under the ICC. I'd love to see the Supremes prune them back, but I think it's probably unlikely.

Very interested to see what happens with things like this, though. If they start to spread I'm betting on my home state (Idaho) as an early adopter, both by temperament and geography.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[JohnRich 4]

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This is the bill whereby the Legislature declares that any firearms made in Montana and retained in Montana are not subject to any federal regulation

I hope they succeed.

The Feds only have the power to regulate due to interstate commerce. So if a gun is made entirely in one state and sold in that state, then only state laws should apply. The Feds however, claim that some of the parts may have come from out of state, or that the steel to make the parts was smelted out of state, or that the ore to make the steel was mined from out of state, and so on... Carrying out that logic, virtually nothing is immune from Federal regulation.

It's ridiculous, and the Feds need to be smacked down for this kind of power-grabbing.

[12500ft 2]

At times, both New Mexico and Texas have challenged federal intervention with school law. However, the federal government then threatens to yank all special education grants (not that they fund much anyway, but special education is the most expensive education mandate there is) and the states immediately bacrk pedal.

Actually, New Mexico initially refused to comply with what was then The Education of All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. However, the feds threatened to pull not just their education grants, but their highway funding. Low and behold they comply.

(This is pathetic that I know this, but I happen to be sitting here writting a paper on special education law with a book on it and a copy of the federal regulations in my lap).

[JohnRich 4]

Quote

At times, both New Mexico and Texas have challenged federal intervention with school law. However, the federal government then threatens to yank all special education grants...

Yep - it's blackmail.

Recently, an anti-terrorism law has proposed to make all state driver's licenses uniform and reported to a central database. If a state refuses to comply, their federal education funding will be withheld. This is as deep as bullshit gets.

Where do the Feds get this education money? From the states, and you and me. We should demand that they quit using it for blackmail purposes.

And maybe we should quit giving it to them in the first place, and just keep it in our own states from the git-go. That way they can't siphon off a large percent for bureaucratic overhead, and then dole it back out, unequally, and with conditions attached.

Where in the heck in the Constitution does it give the Feds any authority over schools or education? It doesn't!

[12500ft 2]

I am a special education teacher, and I happen to believe that the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act is one of the most powerful andappropriate pieces of education legislation ever passed. However, I also know that the U.S. Constitution does not speciifically list education as the responsibility of the federal government and therefore it is left to the states.

I do not believe in forced compliance with anything. In this case New Mexico's refusal was not because they were refusing to educate students with disabilities. They were. They were just not doing it in the manner mandated by federal law.

One final thought and then I'll step off my soapbox. If the federal government is going to mandate that states comply with education and other laws, they should fund them. In theory IDEA is a partially funded federal mandate. However, the federal government has never even come close to funding IDEA at the levels which they promised when it was enacted.

[steve1 5]

I wasn't aware of this. Kimber firearms are now being manufactured in Stevensville, Mt. (where I jump). Sounds like a good law to me....Steve1