{"id":2581,"date":"2010-03-31T02:58:52","date_gmt":"2010-03-31T07:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/?p=2581"},"modified":"2010-03-31T03:01:34","modified_gmt":"2010-03-31T08:01:34","slug":"legal-battles-business-questions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/legal-battles-business-questions\/2581\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal Battles, Business Questions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this week, the NSSF <a href=\"http:\/\/nssf.typepad.com\/keaneinsights\/2010\/03\/80-percent-of-americans-say-states-localities-are-bound-by-second-amendment-.html\" target=\"_blank\">released polling data<\/a> showing that eight in  ten Americans are anything but gun averse. In fact, they&#8217;re downright  supportive of the individual rights interpretation of the United States  Constitution.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"highslide\" onclick=\"return vz.expand(this)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/shepherd033110-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2584\" title=\"shepherd033110-2\" src=\"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/shepherd033110-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"295\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/shepherd033110-2.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/shepherd033110-2-300x177.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a>On the heels of that good news, word that a lower federal court has  ruled that Washington, D.C.&#8217;s &#8220;revised&#8221; handgun registration rules  passed their bar of scrutiny -even in light of the Heller Decision.  That, despite the fact that DC&#8217;s new rules still make it difficult-if  not impossible- to jump through sufficient hoops to license a handgun.<\/p>\n<p>The Second Amendment is anything but a decided issue, especially since  we&#8217;re waiting for the end of the current Supreme Court term for a ruling  in the McDonald versus Chicago case &#8211; chapter two of the battle to  lockdown the individual right interpretation of the Second Amendment.<\/p>\n<p>That issue isn&#8217;t dying down- at least not anytime soon, but it may not  be where the biggest rub with Congress is waiting. The biggest issue  that seems to be showing up on more radar screens is the &#8220;Commerce  Clause&#8221; found in Article 1, Section 8, paragraph 3 of the Constitution.<\/p>\n<p>In the Congressional interpretation, they have virtually limitless power  to regulate anything that even begins to impact interstate commerce. It  is one of the underlying planks in their theory of governance.<\/p>\n<p>Increasingly, however, they&#8217;re finding that when it comes to firearms,  the states have a differing viewpoint. That&#8217;s the idea that a product  made in a state, sold in a state and residing and used solely in that  state is not subject to interstate commerce regulations &#8211; nor subject to  other federal jurisdictions.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, if it&#8217;s stamped &#8220;Made in Alabama&#8221;, sold only in Alabama,  and used only in Alabama, it&#8217;s Alabama&#8217;s business, not Washington&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s based on the Tenth Amendment and the people&#8217;s unenumerated rights  under the Ninth Amendment.<\/p>\n<p>Already, Montana, Tennessee, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Utah have passed  what are being called Firearms Freedom Bills.<\/p>\n<p>Yesterday, the Idaho Firearms Freedom Act passed the state&#8217;s Senate.  It&#8217;s now headed to the desk of Idaho governor Butch Otter for his  expected signature, bringing the total number of states with Firearms  Freedom Acts to six.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, Arizona&#8217;s legislature passed a similar measure, with  Governor Jan Brewer indicating she will &#8220;likely&#8221; sign it into law.<\/p>\n<p>Is this a growing trend? Seems so, especially when state and local  governments are seeing almost daily encroachment into their turf by a  federal government that seems dead-set on regulating everything, despite  the clear indications that average citizens, regardless of race, creed  or political affiliation, are sick of their constant expansion.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_2582\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a class=\"highslide\" onclick=\"return vz.expand(this)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/shepherd033110.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2582\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2582\" title=\"shepherd033110\" src=\"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/shepherd033110.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"295\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/shepherd033110.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/shepherd033110-300x177.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2582\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A growing trend toward state&#39;s rights? This map from www.firearmsfreedomact.com would indicate so, especially when it comes to firearms. <\/p><\/div>\n<p>Being one of the first to say the government needs to go one a diet,  trim spending and get the heck out of all our lives, this movement still  causes me some concern.<\/p>\n<p>Not because it&#8217;s unreasonable; because it is ultimately reasonable.<\/p>\n<p>The test of reasonableness is not administered much when it comes to the  federal government. And rule not interpreted the way they&#8217;d like, tends  to encourage them to overcompensate in another area.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, when it comes to firearms, they not had a lot of luck  lately.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s not to say these measures are going unchallenged. In Montana, the  originating state of the growing firearms freedom legislation movement,  the federal government has challenged the law -on a variety of grounds.  A deadline for briefs on that challenge is only a few days away, and  the federal government is facing a growing list of supporters of the  act.<\/p>\n<p>According to Gary Marbut, president of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mtssa.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Montana Shooting Sports  Association<\/a> and quiet engine behind the legislation, there are other  states lining up to approve clones of the original Montana legislation.<\/p>\n<p>As always, we&#8217;ll keep you posted.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8211;Jim Shepherd<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.shootingwire.com\" target=\"_blank\">www.shootingwire.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this week, the NSSF released polling data showing that eight in ten Americans are anything but gun averse. In fact, they&#8217;re downright supportive of the individual rights interpretation of the United States Constitution. On the heels of that good news, word that a lower federal court has ruled that Washington, D.C.&#8217;s &#8220;revised&#8221; handgun registration [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":2584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,266],"tags":[458,457],"class_list":["post-2581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-shepherd","tag-firearms-freedom-act","tag-the-second-amendment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.downrange.tv\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}