Opinion ID: 734145
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Heading Rank: 4

Heading: preface

Text: 32 The language and legislative history of § 922(o) and a brief discussion of Lopez form a backdrop for further analysis.
33 In 1986 Congress amended the Gun Control Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. §§ 921-28, with the passage of the Firearms Owners' Protection Act (FOPA), Pub.L. No. 99-308, 100 Stat. 449 (1986). Section 102(9) of FOPA added § 922(o) to the existing statute. 100 Stat. at 453. Section 922(o) provides: 34 (o)(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), it shall be unlawful for any person to transfer or possess a machinegun. 35 (2) This subsection does not apply with respect to-- 36 (A) a transfer to or by, or possession by or under the authority of, the United States or any department or agency thereof or a State, or a department, agency, or political subdivision thereof; or 37 (B) any lawful transfer or lawful possession of a machinegun that was lawfully possessed before the date this subsection takes effect. 38 18 U.S.C. § 922(o). Section 922(o) became effective May 19, 1986. See FOPA § 110(c), 100 Stat. at 461 (effective date). 39 The legislative history of § 922(o) is sparse. See David T. Hardy, The Firearms Owners' Protection Act: A Historical and Legal Perspective, 17 Cumb. L.Rev. 585, 669-71 (1987). Section 922(o) was added to FOPA as a last minute amendment on the House floor and its provisions were not debated. See United States v. Wilks, 58 F.3d 1518, 1519 (10th Cir.1995); United States v. Lopez, 2 F.3d 1342, 1356 (5th Cir.1993), aff'd, 514 U.S. 549, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995); 132 Cong. Rec. H1750-52 (daily ed. April 10, 1986); Hardy, supra, at 670. The only apparent explanation for § 922(o) is a statement from its sponsor, Representative Hughes, who, rushing to explain his position before the time for debate expired, stated, I do not know why anyone would object to the banning of machineguns. 132 Cong. Rec. H1750 (daily ed. April 10, 1986). No other reference to § 922(o) appears in committee reports or elsewhere, with the exception of a brief Senate colloquy primarily concerned with the scope of the provision's exemptions as they relate to machinegun manufacturers and government-authorized machineguns. 132 Cong. Rec. S5358-62 (daily ed. May 6, 1986); Hardy, supra, at 670-71 & nn. 462-463. 4 Thus, the legislative history of § 922(o) itself provides no insight into the relationship between § 922(o) and interstate commerce.
40 In United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 115 S.Ct. 1624, 131 L.Ed.2d 626 (1995), the Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of 18 U.S.C. § 922(q)(1)(A) (1988 ed., Supp. V), which banned the possession of firearms near a school and which had been overturned in this court. United States v. Lopez, 2 F.3d 1342 (5th Cir.1993). 5 The Court recognized that Congressional power over interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause extends to (1) legislation regulating the use of the channels of interstate commerce; (2) laws regulating and protecting the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities; and (3) regulations of intrastate activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce. Id. at ---- - ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1629-30. 41 Each of these categories of cases represents a distinct way, exemplified by the Court's chosen citations, to describe the impact of federal legislation upon interstate commerce. See United States v. Robertson, 514 U.S. 669, 115 S.Ct. 1732, 131 L.Ed.2d 714 (1995). Before going further, we note that although Lopez does not explicitly abandon the deferential rational basis standard of review, see, e.g., Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Ass'n, Inc., 452 U.S. 264, 276-80, 101 S.Ct. 2352, 2360-61, 69 L.Ed.2d 1 (1981), neither does the Court defer unblinkingly to Congress's judgment. Indeed, the Court's citations emphasize that it is the judicial duty ultimately to review conformity of legislation to the Commerce Clause. Lopez, 514 U.S. at ---- n. 2, 115 S.Ct. at 1629 n. 2; see also Hodel, 452 U.S. at 311, 101 S.Ct. at 2391-92 (simply because Congress may conclude that a particular activity substantially affects interstate commerce does not necessarily make it so.) (Rehnquist, J. concurring in judgment). As Lopez demonstrates, exercise of this duty requires independent judicial scrutiny of the reasons advanced to explain why the regulation is necessary to protect interstate commerce. Even a statutorily imposed requirement of a jurisdictional nexus to interstate commerce will not insulate a provision from judicial review. See, e.g., United States v. Pappadopoulos, 64 F.3d 522, 527 (9th Cir.1995). 6 42 Moving to a more detailed consideration of the Lopez categories, regulation of the channels of interstate commerce, the first category, is limited to direct regulation of the interstate channels themselves. The cases cited in Lopez, or by its reference to Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. 146, 148, 91 S.Ct. 1357, 1359, 28 L.Ed.2d 686 (1971), to describe the first category involve statutes that contain an express jurisdictional nexus element. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. §§ 2312-2315 (interstate shipment of stolen goods); 18 U.S.C. § 1201 (interstate transport of kidnaping victims); United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 61 S.Ct. 451, 85 L.Ed. 609 (1941) (regulation of working conditions in the production of goods for interstate commerce). This category must be limited to legislation that specifically reaches interstate transfers, possessions, and transactions and business engaged in commerce. United States v. Robertson, supra at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1733 (goldmine engaged in commerce). 43 The second category of Commerce Clause power permits laws regulating or protecting instruments of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may derive from intrastate activity. The Court cites in this connection the Shreveport Rate Cases, 234 U.S. 342, 34 S.Ct. 833, 58 L.Ed. 1341 (1914), which upheld rate regulation of a railroad engaged in interstate commerce, and Southern Railway Company v. United States, 222 U.S. 20, 32 S.Ct. 2, 56 L.Ed. 72 (1911), permitting regulation of interstate railway safety. The Court also cites a statute criminalizing the destruction of aircraft used in interstate commerce, 18 U.S.C. § 32, and vehicle thefts from interstate shipments, 18 U.S.C. § 659. This category includes regulation or protection pertaining to instrumentalities or things as they move in interstate commerce. 44 With regard to the third category of cases, as the Court put it, the pattern is clear. Lopez, 514 U.S. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1630. Federal regulation of even intrastate economic activity will be sustained if the activity substantially affects interstate commerce. The Court's citations again bear out its purpose. See Hodel v. Virginia Surface Mining & Reclamation Ass'n, Inc., 452 U.S. 264, 276-280, 101 S.Ct. 2352, 2360-61, 69 L.Ed.2d 1 (1981) (upholding regulation of intrastate coal mining); Perez v. United States, supra (intrastate extortionate credit transactions); Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294, 299-301, 85 S.Ct. 377, 381-382, 13 L.Ed.2d 290 (1964) (restaurants utilizing substantial interstate supplies); Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 252-253, 85 S.Ct. 348, 354-355, 13 L.Ed.2d 258 (1964) (inns and hotels catering to interstate guests). All of the cases involved economic regulations or legislation bearing on commercial activity, and in those cases, the intrastate activity either substantially affected interstate commerce, or it had to be regulated in order not to undercut a federal commercial regulatory scheme. Lopez, 514 U.S. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1631. 7 45 The Court majority agreed that § 922(q) neither regulates the channels of interstate commerce nor protects an instrumentality of interstate commerce or a thing in interstate commerce, id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1630. The problem in Lopez centered on the third category of Commerce Clause power. There are three steps to the Court's analysis of the substantial effects test. The threshold question is whether the local activity sought to be regulated is commercial in nature, or whether its regulation is necessary to effectuate federal regulation of a larger commercial activity. The majority agreed that the ban on possession of a gun in a school zone fails to substantially affect any sort of interstate commerce. Id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1634. Further, § 922(q) by its terms has nothing to do with 'commerce' or any sort of economic enterprise, however broadly one might define those terms. Id. at ---- ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1630-31. The majority easily rejected the notion that the act of possessing a gun in a school zone is subject to federal regulation because, viewed in the aggregate, such acts substantially affect interstate commerce. Lopez, 514 U.S. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1631. What this means is that non-commercial intrastate acts may not be deemed commercial, for purposes of extending federal regulation, simply by considering them en masse; 8 such activities are only subject to federal regulation if their regulation is essential to a larger economic regulatory scheme. Lopez thus holds that commercial activity is not a definitional vacuum waiting to be filled by a creative Congress and judges. While the Court acknowledges that characterizing an intrastate activity as commercial or non-commercial may create some legal uncertainty, 514 U.S. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1633, the Court's conclusion regarding the purely criminal provision, § 922(q), caused no interpretive difficulty to the majority. Lopez sends a clear cautionary signal that federal criminalization of intrastate noneconomic activity, when such regulation is not essential to a broader regulation of commercial activity, will have difficulty satisfying the substantial effects basis for Commerce Clause regulation. 46 The second element of the substantial effects test is whether the statute contains a jurisdictional nexus to interstate commerce. Lopez commented on the absence of any jurisdictional nexus requirement in § 922(q) that would insure, through case-by-case inquiry, that a particular firearm possession substantially affects interstate commerce. Lopez illustrated how a jurisdictional nexus requirement could save a statute from Constitutional infirmity by describing United States v. Bass, 404 U.S. 336, 92 S.Ct. 515, 30 L.Ed.2d 488 (1971). The provision at issue in Bass criminalized, inter alia, a felon's possession of a firearm in commerce or affecting commerce. Former 18 U.S.C. § 1202(a). The government convicted Bass without offering proof of a nexus to interstate commerce. The Court reversed the conviction for this omission and thus interpreted the statute to reserve the Constitutional question whether Congress could regulate, without more, the 'mere possession' of firearms. Lopez, 514 U.S. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1624 (citing Bass, 404 U.S. at 339, n. 4, 92 S.Ct. at 518, n. 4). As previously noted, a jurisdictional nexus requirement does not ipso facto validate a statute against an as-applied Commerce Clause challenge, 9 but its existence is reassuring against a facial challenge. 47 The final element of the substantial effects inquiry is whether there are limits in the statute that mark a boundary of some sort between matters of truly national concern and those traditionally subject to state regulation. In this connection, the Court acknowledged that legislative findings, while not legally necessary, would facilitate judicial review of the substantial effects question. Lopez, 514 U.S. at ---- - ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1631-32; Perez, supra, 402 U.S. at 156, 91 S.Ct. at 1362. No such findings accompanied § 922(q), however. The Court also agreed with the Fifth Circuit 10 that legislative findings pertaining to previous firearms statutes could not be imported into the analysis of § 922(q). 514 U.S. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1632. The Court finally rejected both the costs of crime and national productivity theories proffered by the federal government to demonstrate substantial interstate commerce effects, and it rejected Justice Breyer's equation of education with commercial activity. 514 U.S. at ---- - ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1632-34. Neither of these attenuated strings of logic, according to Lopez, furnishes any principled limit on federal power in areas such as criminal law enforcement or education, where states have traditionally been sovereign.