Otis McDonald is one step closer to being able to exercise his 2nd Amendment rights. States and local municipalities can no longer say the 2nd Amendment doesn't apply to them. The last 2 handgun bans in America will fall and then there's an open road for further progress.

Blogger coverage:

• http://stuckinmassachusetts.blogspot.com/2010/06/im-lovin-it.html
• http://maypeacebewithyou.blogspot.com/2010/06/you-deserve-break-today-mcdonalds.htm
• http://gunnuts.net/2010/06/28/old-mcdonald-had-a-gun/
• http://www.saysuncle.com/2010/06/28/mcdonald-reversed-and-remanded/

1. Require dealers to obtain an ammunition seller's license and to collect a buyer's thumbprint, name, drivers license, address, phone number and date of birth.
2. Make handgun ammunition inaccessible to customers.
3. Transfer of handgun ammunition must be done face-to-face.

Fine, #1 and #2 are just annoyances, but what about #3? Requiring handgun ammunition to be transferred in person effectively bans all mail order and Internet sales of handgun ammunition. Right now you can count the number of places where this is the law on one hand and the motivation put forward is to improve the enforcement of other laws and aiding investigations. As long as you can order ammunition through the mail, then criminals will be able to buy ammunition for the guns they aren't suppose to own. So if a criminal doesn't obey one law surely they'll obey this other law if we pass it. Right?

That's the ultimate problem with laws trying to control firearms and ammunition. The only ones who abide by the rules are those of us who are law abiding to begin with. Criminals can't own guns, but they still find ways to obtain them. Now criminals won't be able to buy ammo online, but does anyone believe they'll have trouble obtaining ammunition illegally for their illegally possessed weapons? The criminals go on breaking the law and the rest of us are saddled with more regulations, rules, hoops to jump through and higher prices. What would be next, a background check and 10 day waiting period for purchasing ammunition like we have with firearms?

Funny thing is there's nothing in the law about the components used to manufacture ammunition, those will still be available through mail order and the Internet. So even if this passes, criminals could order bullets, cases, powder, primers, dies and a nice progressive reloading press and assemble their own ammo. Actually that's what I'm thinking of doing. How backwards is this state that the laws they try to pass encourage individuals to think like criminals.

I'll be mashing my F5 button this weekend on this page: AB 962 Status

S&W 686 4" revolver, .38 special, double action, 21 feet

AN ACT EXEMPTING FROM FEDERAL REGULATION UNDER THE COMMERCE CLAUSE OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES A FIREARM, A FIREARM ACCESSORY, OR AMMUNITION MANUFACTURED AND RETAINED IN MONTANA; AND PROVIDING AN APPLICABILITY DATE.

If you aren't too familiar with interstate commerce, I found this excellent analysis of the original purpose for the federal government's power of regulating interstate commerce. The power to regulate was not meant to be on the actual items themselves, but the imposition of tariffs by states on each other and with foreign countries. If State A imports widgets from State B and State C, it would be harmful to state relations to allow State A to impose a tariff on the goods from State B and not on State C. State B could retaliate on State A and C with its own tariffs. It doesn't matter what the widget is, it is the actual "commerce" and "trade" that needs to be regulated.

The federal government has developed lots of powers using interstate commerce as a justification. Let's look at the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. In United States vs. Lopez, the government argued it could ban firearms in schools because possession of a firearm there would lead to violent crime which would cause damages, increase insurance rates and then spread to the greater economy there by affecting interstate commerce. The Supreme Court struck this down in 1995 because it gave the federal government nearly unlimited power to regulate anything that might eventually lead to violent crime. The powers of the federal government are enumerated in the Constitution and the court found that possession of a handgun was not a commercial activity or even remotely related to one.

So what's all this have to do with Montana? The law Montana passed makes firearm regulations justified by interstate commerce moot. If the federal government wanted to impose a 50 cent tax on each round of ammunition, it would use interstate commerce as a justification because that ammunition could move over state lines. Remember, there is no enumerated power given to Congress that specifically gives it the power to regulate ammunition. The Montana law says that if the ammunition is manufactured, sold, possessed and used in Montana, then the federal government has absolutely zero power to regulate that ammunition.

This is big. Utah and Texas have similar laws going through their state legislatures. States are telling the federal government that they want them to go the hell away. This isn't just about firearm laws either. The DEA has been prosecuting people here in California for marijuana violations even though the state okay'd medical marijuana over a decade ago. A similar law passed here could say that all marijuana grown, sold and used for medicinal purposes in California is exempt from federal law. This isn't about what issues you agree or disagree with, this is all about state rights and fighting back against unenumerated powers held by the federal government.

I truly believe the founding fathers never intended the government to wield such far reaching powers and any movement back towards the idea of putting the federal government in a box and leaving everything outside that box up to the states is okay with me. It will be interesting to see what happens with these laws and how things go down in the Supreme Court when they're eventually challenged. Something tells me the bureaucrats won't cede their power quietly.