Court Opinion

ID: 9496516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:28:41.816072+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:37.727930
License: Public Domain

RESTANI, Judge,
concurring in part, dissenting in part:
I dissent from that part of the majority’s opinion which finds 18 U.S.C. § 922(o) un*1143constitutional as applied to a machine gun partially home manufactured from legal parts. I agree that this case is not controlled by prior circuit precedent, which relies on earlier illegal transfers. See, e.g., United States v. Rambo, 74 F.3d 948 (9th Cir.1996). Rather, I adopt the reasoning of the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Kenney, 91 F.3d 884 (7th Cir.1996), which finds that the regulation of possession, as well as transfer, of machine guns is part of Congress’s long standing efforts to regulate the trade in machine guns, that is, to regulate the whole of the economic activity of trade in machine guns. Id. at 890 (upholding the constitutionality of § 922(o) as a regulation of activity substantially affecting interstate commerce).
Unlike the majority, and like the court in Kenney, I find Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, 63 S.Ct. 82, 87 L.Ed. 122 (1942) controlling. Possession of machine guns, home manufactured or not, substantially interferes with Congress’s long standing attempts to control the interstate movement of machine guns by proscribing transfer and possession. Congress’s chosen method in § 922(o) was to totally eliminate the demand side of the economic activity by freezing legal possession at 1986 levels, “an effect that is closely entwined with regulating interstate commerce” even as applied to purely intrastate possession of machine guns resulting from home manufacture. Kenney, 91 F.3d at 890. Allowing home manufacture is clearly not within the intent of § 922(o) and would upset Congress’s entirely lawful plan to regulate trade in machine guns. Accordingly, I dissent in part.