Constitutionality of ATF regs
- Thread starter Gaerek
- Start date
The commerce clause is over-broad that's true. But those nullification laws were also a trainwreck.
If my firearm was made in my state, and it never leaves it, it's not subject to interstate commerce. Which means the company making it is not subject to ATF regulation because Commerce is how ATF gets its foot in the door. Of course, if I buy it, and my company transfers me across country, I have the right to full use of my property, so I should be able to bring my firearm with me, right? That's why we think we should be able to drag our rifles with us locked in our trunks on a road trip via FOPA? A legal expert would have to weigh in on where that is, but the back of my mind is ticking to 4A. Of course, now y firearm has left my state, and is in interstate commerce, and the company that made it is subject to ATF regulation, which means... a whole lot of smelly brown stuff is about to roll up-hill.
And that's why no company moved to one of those nullification States. Not because they didn't want to be the test case, but because they didn't want to get back-doored by someone moving.
If my firearm was made in my state, and it never leaves it, it's not subject to interstate commerce. Which means the company making it is not subject to ATF regulation because Commerce is how ATF gets its foot in the door. Of course, if I buy it, and my company transfers me across country, I have the right to full use of my property, so I should be able to bring my firearm with me, right? That's why we think we should be able to drag our rifles with us locked in our trunks on a road trip via FOPA? A legal expert would have to weigh in on where that is, but the back of my mind is ticking to 4A. Of course, now y firearm has left my state, and is in interstate commerce, and the company that made it is subject to ATF regulation, which means... a whole lot of smelly brown stuff is about to roll up-hill.
And that's why no company moved to one of those nullification States. Not because they didn't want to be the test case, but because they didn't want to get back-doored by someone moving.
dogtown tom
New member
While it may have been manufactured wholly within your state, sold within your state and never leaves your state......it DOES impact interstate commerce as it affects sales of other firearms.
No. Simply because you own or possess an item in one state doesn't magically impart special powers that let you take it anywhere you want.
Certain firearm are prohibited by STATE law in several states.
Alcoholic beverage possession is prohibited in some jurisdictions, as are certain animals, etc.
We should, but transporttion of a firearm while passing through isn't the same as moving there to live.
No, nothing has changed. You are making the assumption that ATF doesn't get involved until a firearm leaves a state, clearly that is false.
No, they knew those state firearm freedom laws are worthless on their face.
I will just have to say that not much regard is given to any individual American citizens' "rights" anymore. If what you do or say is not aligned with public opinion or popular, it won't matter what you think your "rights" are or if you are completely within your "rights", you will be persecuted.
The curtain has dropped, the "rights" we keep bantering about that we supposedly have, has no bearing on the "justice" that will be brought down upon you.
If you want to do something that might be perceived as unpopular, politically incorrect or not aligned with popular opinion, just do it, don't talk about it, don't ask about it, don't give anyone a head's up and don't advertise it after you do it. Or, just give up what it is you want to do altogether and don't jeopardize the only freedom you still have.
This Constitutional Republic we had, no longer exists contrary to the belief's of many Americans, the law now is whatever they want it to be regardless of the previous boundaries that were in place.
A law will be created to prosecute you for whatever it was that you did that someone didn't like. These are Orwellian times we live in, we need to start acting accordingly to either just survive it or act accordingly to change it.
The curtain has dropped, the "rights" we keep bantering about that we supposedly have, has no bearing on the "justice" that will be brought down upon you.
If you want to do something that might be perceived as unpopular, politically incorrect or not aligned with popular opinion, just do it, don't talk about it, don't ask about it, don't give anyone a head's up and don't advertise it after you do it. Or, just give up what it is you want to do altogether and don't jeopardize the only freedom you still have.
This Constitutional Republic we had, no longer exists contrary to the belief's of many Americans, the law now is whatever they want it to be regardless of the previous boundaries that were in place.
A law will be created to prosecute you for whatever it was that you did that someone didn't like. These are Orwellian times we live in, we need to start acting accordingly to either just survive it or act accordingly to change it.
breakingcontact
Moderator
Laws are now whatever they can get away with, rewriting along the way and getting some court to approve.
Frank Ettin
Administrator
Phooey!amprecon said:
Most of the time people object to the way the system is working it seems to be primarily because they aren't getting what they want. But we live in a pluralistic Republic, and not everyone agrees that things ought to be the way you want them to be.
At various times in our history things we today take for granted were illegal. People were permitted to own other humans. You could go to jail for operating your business on a Sunday. You could go to jail for having intimate relations with a person of a different race or the same gender.
Some freedoms important to you might have been less circumscribed in the past than today. But some other freedoms important to others (and perhaps less important to you) were more circumscribed in the past and less so today. That is an ordinary ebb and flow of an organized society.
Throughout our history there have been people who have complained that the actions of the federal government were inimical to the founding principles of our Nation and inconsistent with the proper scope of government. Throughout our history there have been people who have complained that the actions of state governments were inimical to the founding principles of our Nation and inconsistent with the proper scope of government. That sort of friction will be common to any organized society. Our Founders left us with a particular framework and process (a federal system, checks and balances and separation of powers) for managing that friction.
Often those who tend to be the most dissatisfied with the way the process is working are forgetting their own role in the process. We select the government. How effective are you at influencing your neighbors, the people in your community, your co-workers, etc., to join you in selecting representatives who will further the goals and values important to you?
The Founding Fathers set up our system --
- The Constitution of the United States of America. And from the Constitution, we can infer that they intended us to have, among other things:
- A system of checks and balances achieved through a separation of powers among the Congress (legislative), the President (executive) and the Courts (judicial);
- Of these three branches of government, the legislative was most directly subject to the influence of the body politic, and the judicial was the least subject to the direct influence of the body politic;
- Judicial power vested in a Supreme Court and such inferior courts as Congress might establish, and this judicial power would extend to all cases arising under, among other things, the Constitution and the laws of the United States;
- A Constitution that could be changed, albeit with difficulty.
- A system of checks and balances achieved through a separation of powers among the Congress (legislative), the President (executive) and the Courts (judicial);
The system does allow for change, so you are free to try to generate sufficient support to put into place an alternate system which might suit you better.
As we've written extensively before, executive orders cannot be used to make law.
Folks, this thread is about the constitutionality of ATF regulations. If someone wants to do generalized rants about their opinion on the state of the country in general, this isn't the place.
breakingcontact
Moderator
The latest changes to ATF regs pertaining to NFA trusts came from executive ACTIONS no?
Executive orders have something of a tradition, even if they're not enumerated in the Constitution. Executive actions? I have no clue what that is, other than something the executive...um, does. I suppose he can make Putting On His Shoes seem dramatic if he puts it in capital letters.
Back to the point, the President is within his authority to direct or modify enforcement of existing statutes. He doesn't need our say-so. He can also delegate that authority to some extent, which was done to the ATF a long time ago. They're the ones making this call.
The 1984 rulings barring the Striker-12 and Street Sweeper shotguns from import required no input from the President, nor did the 1989 import ban.
Frank Ettin
Administrator
"Executive action" is an essentially meaningless term. It is not the same thing as an Executive Order -- something with an established, fixed meaning.breakingcontact said:
Instead, the Obama administration has used the term "executive action" to mean pretty much anything that might have sort of started in the Oval Office.
It may well be that Obama encouraged the ATF to begin the rule making process to change the NFA regulations with regard to trusts. So what?
The regulatory changes are still being made through the established rule making process. And since the ATF is part of the Executive Branch, it's not unexpected that a President, as senior manager of the Executive Branch, might give direction to an agency reporting to him to take some action using appropriate procedures.
The administration's reference to "executive action" has just been in this context a PR ploy so that Obama can take some public credit. Your trying to cast the use of the term as a 'boogeyman" is preposterous.
Dogtown, That was a somewhat Devil's Advocate approach to why the Nullification laws were so bad. Those arguments have been espoused on here previously. I was merely pointing out that even if they WERE correct arguments, it would open a giant can of worms.
ETA: Tom, when you say:
ETA: Tom, when you say:
In this case, modifying the statute itself to some degree rather than the enforcement, it's because Congress passed those statutes with a built in delegation of SOME level of authority to the BATFE to modify or otherwise promulgate regulations to them to work in the "real world" correct? The President cannot modify a statute unless some authority is delegated to one of the departments under his authority, and even then, it must be within the scope of "legal" for example in Kent V Dulles, where the Court found Congress had delegate passport control to the State Department, which was fine, but that denying a passport to a Communist was not, because Congress can't abridge free speech or the "Liberty" of travel either.
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