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UNITED STATES v. MORRISON

Opinion of the Court

First, we observed that § 922(q) was “a criminal statute
that by its terms has nothing to do with ‘commerce’ or any
sort of economic enterprise, however broadly one might de-
ﬁne those terms.”
Id., at 561. Reviewing our case law, we
noted that “we have upheld a wide variety of congressional
Acts regulating intrastate economic activity where we have
concluded that the activity substantially affected interstate
commerce.”
Id., at 559. Although we cited only a few ex-
amples, including Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U. S. 111 (1942);
Hodel, supra; Perez, supra; Katzenbach v. McClung, 379
U. S. 294 (1964); and Heart of Atlanta Motel, supra, we
stated that the pattern of analysis is clear. Lopez, 514 U. S.,
“Where economic activity substantially affects
at 559–560.
interstate commerce, legislation regulating that activity will
be sustained.”

Id., at 560.

Both petitioners and Justice Souter’s dissent downplay
the role that the economic nature of the regulated activity
plays in our Commerce Clause analysis. But a fair reading
of Lopez shows that the noneconomic, criminal nature of the
conduct at issue was central to our decision in that case.
See, e. g., id., at 551 (“The Act [does not] regulat[e] a com-
mercial activity”), 560 (“Even Wickard, which is perhaps
the most far reaching example of Commerce Clause author-
ity over intrastate activity, involved economic activity in a
way that the possession of a gun in a school zone does not”),
561 (“Section 922(q) is not an essential part of a larger regu-
lation of economic activity”), 566 (“Admittedly, a determi-
nation whether an intrastate activity is commercial or non-
commercial may in some cases result in legal uncertainty.
But, so long as Congress’ authority is limited to those powers
enumerated in the Constitution, and so long as those enu-
merated powers are interpreted as having judicially enforce-
able outer limits, congressional legislation under the Com-
merce Clause always will engender ‘legal uncertainty’ ”), 567
(“The possession of a gun in a local school zone is in no
sense an economic activity that might, through repetition