[Special
note for special linkers! This doesn’t
mean that the states can’t regulate homemade machine guns (as in toss people in
the hooskow)! Also, this is a Ninth
Circuit case, not a Supreme Court case! So
please don’t build homemade machine guns on my account!]
Facts: Stewart sold kits for
making machine guns, and when his home was searched some machine guns were
found. He had built the machine guns
himself rather than buying them. Stewart
was arrested for possessing machine guns in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922 (o)
and was convicted at trial. Stewart
challenged this conviction on the basis that Congress did not have the power to
forbid his conduct under the Commerce Clause because the guns never traveled in
interstate commerce but rather were “home-grown”.
Issue: Can Congress prohibit the
“mere possession of homemade machineguns” under the Commerce Clause?
Rule: Congress can regulate the
three categories of activity set out in Lopez: “channels”, “instrumentalities”,
and stuff that “substantially affects” interstate commerce.
Analysis: The court first considers whether
the section in question is a regulation of the “use of the channels of
interstate commerce”. The court found in
United States v. Rambo that there is
“no unlawful possession…without an unlawful transfer” and thus the statute was a
constitutional regulation of the “use of the channels of interstate commerce”.
But
the court goes on to distinguish the present case, because there was never an
unlawful transfer. All the stuff that
moved through interstate commerce did so legally, but then Stewart put the
stuff together to make an illegal weapon.
Therefore, in this case there is no use of the channels of interstate
commerce to regulate.
Then
the court considers whether the statute can be seen in this case as regulating
an activity that substantially affects interstate commerce. The court uses the “four-part test” of Morrison
to determine whether the regulating homemade machine guns “substantially
affects” interstate commerce.
The
court finds that (1) possession of a machine gun is not economic in nature, (2)
the connection between possession of a machine gun and interstate commerce is
attenuated, (3) the statute has no explicit jurisdictional hook into the
Commerce Clause and (4) legislative findings purported to support the
constitutionality of § 922 (o) actually have no bearing.
The
court argues for the legality and propriety of “as-applied” challenges against
the dissent in McCoy.
The
dissent in this case says that regulating possession of machine guns is a valid
part of a broader strategy to regulate the interstate machine gun market as a
whole. Restani also argues that Wickard should control. Stewart’s guns are claimed to be like
Filburn’s wheat such that Stewart would go out and buy machine guns on the
interstate market if he wasn’t making them at home.
Conclusion: The conviction under § 922
(o) is reversed.