General counterpoints of concern—Gun Free Zones and the regulation of interstate commerce:
The Nation has no schools, only the Nation’s several states have schools. Ergo, the Nation possesses zero controlling interest over each state’s locally owned and operated schools.
The federal government’s power of regulating commerce expires once the transaction in interstate commerce has completed.
Most states have related public laws on their own books, thereby resulting in perpetual conflict and confusion under the supremacy of federal laws. Such as in California, CPC626.9, the Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1995.
Once the ownership of an article of interstate has transferred to or transported into intrastate its federal connection has once and all been severed, the federal government has no authority or say over its future usage, transference, transportation while remaining intrastate (save for certain aspects of federal taxation of that article.)
This act is a blatant power grab over intrastate property that is entirely outside the control and authority of the federal government, including all classes of schools and all public spaces surrounding them within a 1,000-foot perimeter.
This act on its face creates tens of thousands of unintentional violations every single day across the United States as it is impractical for all CCW/CCP holders and off-duty law enforcement personnel, security guards, armor transport guards, and the like to stop unload and lock away their concealed firearms each time they come within one-fifth a mile of any school grounds, which occupy every neighborhood through most cities.
The spirit and context of Amendments Two, Nine, and Ten supersede whatever power derives from the Commerce Clause.
The process involved is unfair to open carriers of concealable firearms and carriers of rifles, and is grossly biased towards individuals residing within states, counties, or cities that do not recognize or provide for the Acts required “licensing”—proffering citizens no legal recourse for states that do not issue such licenses for individuals residing in counties or municipalities where the practice of acquiring a license is greatly restricted or strictly prohibited, and outright denies other reasonable alternatives for constitutional carry or riflepersons (such as carrying unloaded in a lockbox.)
The Act prevents schools the option of offering shooting courses or gun training and safety on campus and the like.
The Act interferes with each individual state’s own social agendas on how to address firearms and schools.
Certainly, the majority of firearms may be involved in interstate commerce; however, firearm owners, state operated schools, and students certainly are not, this act takes a very large leap in these respects.
Ultimately such legislation establishes the precedents that any portion of a manufactured product or property inevitably become relegated to federal jurisdiction by the Commerce Clause as effectively one or more ingredients, compounds, components, or materials are imported into one state or another from another state or nation, be it sodium fluoride imported from China used throughout the United States for water fluoridation, coal, computer processors or hard-drives, concrete, coffee, bananas, honey, sugar, shoes, clothing, vehicles, eyeglasses, jewelry, etc.
This legislation exceeds constitutional authority as the federal government possesses no powers of policing outside of the seat of the federal government and it exceeds the Necessary and Proper Clause (U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Clauses 17 and 18.)
The Act burdens the states by compelling tax-payers to staff local law enforcement and resources to make arrests, process paperwork and evidence, jail and trail violators, and depose and testify in court to this federal law—which is ultimately creates further conflict in that local law enforcement lack the jurisdiction to act on behalf of federal agents.
This legislation bastardizes the Commerce Clause—including its common law context—which is not intended to serve as a last resort fallback in those rare instances where the federal government does not get its way in the Court.
The Act omits the necessary element of willfulness in knowing or reasonably suspecting that the firearm is as fact connected to interstate commerce, but only that the knowingly possessed a firearm on their person.
The Act works to generate a caste society, by excluding civilian police forces, serving to pave the way towards neo-feudalism. Thus rendering itself to unconstitutionality in that it violates both our National Charter (i.e., the Declaration of Independence) and the Fourteenth Amendment. As it places greater importance among agents of federal and state governments well above the citizens it supposedly represents, it violates the undeniable maxim that all persons are created equal and are entitled to life and all methods of due process.
The regulation of commerce means precisely that—it does not extend to regulation over private ownership or activities of the commerce once purchased and existing intrastate by citizens.
Comparatively, the federal government possesses authority over immigration; however, it does not possess authority to dictate that since most vehicles are imported interstate that all states must provide illegal immigrates (e.g., undocumented workers) with a driver’s license in accordance with federal regulations, or that being that the federal government possesses authority over the securing of free speech and expression that is may therefore prohibit any or whatever form of it.
Dissenting opinion in Budd v. New York, 143 U.S. 517, 550-551 (1892): Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights -- "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" -- and to "secure," not grant or create, these rights, governments are instituted. . . . The paternal theory of government is to me odious. The utmost possible liberty to the individual, and the fullest possible protection to him and his property, is both the limitation and duty of government.
Federalist No. 45, Para. 7: “The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negociation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will for the most part be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”
Federalist Paper No. 57, Para. 4: “ . . . I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny. If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society?
