Opinion ID: 161523
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Essential Part of a Regulatory Scheme

Text: 39 We hold that banning possession of post-1986 machineguns is an essential part of the federal scheme to regulate interstate commerce in dangerous weapons. Congress has found that firearms and ammunition move easily in interstate commerce, 922(q)(1)(C), and has therefore taken numerous steps to regulate these transactions. Machineguns legally possessed may not be transferred in commerce without approval from the Secretary of the Treasury, and a substantial tax must be paid. 26 U.S.C. 5811(a), 5812(a). See generally David T. Hardy, The Firearms Owners' Protection Act: A Historical and Legal Perspective, 17 Cumb. L. Rev. 585, 589-605 (1987) (detailing the history of federal gun-control legislation). Thus, there is a general regulatory scheme to regulate interstate commerce in firearms, particularly including machineguns. 40 But focusing on weapons only as they move in interstate commerce has not been effective to curb the interstate flow of these weapons. Rather, Congress has found it necessary also to regulate intrastate activities as a way of addressing the interstate market in machineguns. Similar statutes regulate intrastate possession of other extremely dangerous devices such as biological weapons, 18 U.S.C. 175(a), nuclear material, 18 U.S.C. 831(a), and semiautomatic assault weapons, 18 U.S.C. 922(v)(1). There is no question that the market in firearms generally is heavily interstate indeed, international in character. E.g., 18 U.S.C. 922(q)(1)(D) (finding that even before the sale of a firearm, the gun, its component parts, ammunition, and the raw materials from which they are made have considerably moved in interstate commerce); S. Rep. No. 90-1097 (1968), reprinted in 1968 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2112, 2164-65 (noting testimony that 50 to 80 percent of the crime guns that are confiscated each year are foreign imports and that 90 out of every 100 crime guns confiscated in Detroit are not purchased and registered in Michigan and that the prime source of these crime guns is by purchases in neighboring Ohio, where controls on firearms are minimal). 3 Because of the ease of moving weapons across state and national lines, Congress has rationally concluded that it cannot rely on the states to control the market in these devices by themselves. See Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, Pub. L. No. 90-351, 901(a)(1), 82 Stat. 197, 225 ([T]here is a widespread traffic in firearms moving in or other affecting interstate or foreign commerce . . . .). 41 The First Circuit has explained this reasoning further in upholding the constitutionality of 922(x)(2), the provision of the Youth Handgun Safety Act (YHSA) that prohibits a juvenile from possessing a handgun. United States v. Cardoza, 129 F.3d 6, 12 (1st Cir. 1997). After noting that the Commerce power has long been exercised to regulate the national market in firearms, id., the court explained: 42 [W]e think the possessory prong of the YHSA . . . is an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity, in which the regulatory scheme could be undercut unless the intrastate activity were regulated. This is so because the YHSA was designed expressly to stop the commerce in handguns with juveniles nationwide. Part of this regulatory approach involves the suppression of the demand for such handguns. The YHSA can be thus seen as criminalization of the two points where the prohibited commerce finds its nexus[:] the demand for the firearms (possession), and the sale or transfer designed to meet that demand. The two prohibitions go hand in hand with one another. Invalidation of one half of the equation would likely have deleterious effects on the efficacy of the legislation. In this regard, we think it clear that given Congress' express purpose, its decision to punish both the supply (sale or transfer) and demand (possession) sides of the market is a means reasonably calculated to achieve its end. 43 Id. (citations and alterations omitted). Similarly, the possessory component of 922(o) goes hand in hand with the prohibition on transfers and is therefore an essential part of the larger regulatory scheme. Accord Franklyn, 157 F.3d at 95 ([Section] 922(o) is integral to an overall system for the federal regulation of firearms.); Kenney, 91 F.3d at 890 (Permitting unregulated intrastate possessions . . . of machine guns . . . indirectly undermines, via a market theory, the effectiveness of the federal attempt to regulate interstate commerce in machine guns. In other words, the intrastate activity 'affects' the interstate commerce . . . .); Beukelaere, 91 F.3d at 786 ([T]here is a rational basis to conclude that federal regulation of intrastate incidents of transfer and possession of machineguns is essential to effective control of interstate incidents of traffic in machineguns.); see also Wilks, 58 F.3d at 1522 (Congress prohibited the transfer and possession of most post-1986 machineguns not merely to ban these firearms, but rather, to control their interstate movement by proscribing transfer or possession.). 44