Constitution Check: Can states exempt themselves from federal gun laws?

Yahoo ^ | August 5, 2014 | Lyle Denniston

[ForYourChildren]

THE STATEMENTS AT ISSUE:

“It is unlawful for any official, agent or employee of the government of the United States…to enforce or attempt to enforce any act, law, treaty, order, rule or regulation of the government of the United States regarding a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately and owned in the state of Kansas and that remains within the borders of Kansas.”

– Excerpt from a Kansas law, ..S.B 102 and titled the “Second Amendment Protection Act,” enacted ..last year.. Kansas was the latest of several states to pass such laws.

“The far-reaching nullification provisions of the Act are unconstitutional on their face under long-standing, fundamental legal principles. Neither the Kansas legislature, nor any state legislature, is empowered to declare federal law ‘invalid,’ or to criminalize the enforcement of federal law. Any legislation or state action seeking to nullify federal law is prohibited by the Supremacy Clause, Article VI, Section 2, of the United States Constitution.”

– Excerpt from a lawsuit filed in federal court in Kansas on July 9, seeking a ruling that would strike down the Kansas law on gun rights.

WE CHECKED THE CONSTITUTION, AND…

From time to time in American constitutional history, a revival of states’ rights sentiment has led to efforts to place state governments between citizens and the federal government, to thwart excessive use of national power. The idea, never accepted by the Supreme Court as valid, is based on the theory that the Constitution was actually a creature of the states, joining together in a compact to give some – but not all – power to a central government. The states, the theory goes, are the ultimate arbiters of how governing power should be distributed and exercised.

{excerpt}

[Dead Corpse]

And then there is this...

The prohibition is general. No clause in the constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both. - William Rawle, “A View of the Constitution of the United States of America” (1829)

[Monorprise]

I won’t disagree with the assertion that Washington is now nearly everything the Anti Federalist feared it could become.

Federal power over the last 2 centuries has grown to the point of excluding the rights of all Americans both as individuals and as States.

They are now the very empire of lawlessness the Federal Constitution was created to prevent, This we know because that Constitution is written, and its more faithful execution documented in our history. An execution and set of words that bare no resemblance to the ‘government’ we now have today.

[Monorprise]

Not involved in the Drafting of the Bill of rights,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rawle

Nonetheless in my heart I agree with him on the 2nd amendment in printable.

You see what he is saying is technically true of most all the Amendments. Congress did not before the ‘bill of rights’ have any right to make domestic laws on speech arms, search and secure, ect...

The point of the ‘bill of rights’ was to see to it that they did not try a more pointless(’flexible’) ‘interpretation’ by their own hand picked employees and ignore the fact that they haven’t been given power to govern domestically.

In the case of the 2nd amendment if taken out of its context it would even seem that in theory you could apply it to all governments. In practice however the 9th and 10th amendments make it clear that the context of the ‘Bill of rights’ is that of the Federal Constitution not the States or local governments.

This is a good printable because people are very bit as capable of making State constitutions to address State Government excesses. The last thing we should want is a Federal Constitution providing a tool for uniform abuse, corruption, or dysfunction.

William Rawle being a lawyer and Federal district attorney had very little intrest in the reserved rights of the people and their States.