Sunday, January 3, 2010

New Hampshire Utilizing the 10th Amendment to Protect the 2nd Amendment

It appears that New Hampshire legislators are pushing a bill through their state legislature that will nullify federal gun laws AND make it a felony for federal agents to deny citizens of New Hampshire their 2nd Amendment rights. The House bill (HB1285) would "exempt firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition manufactured in New Hampshire from federal law and regulation.”

This falls under "intrastate commerce", which is NOT regulated by the federal government. In addition, the bill lays out the following penalties for those who deny NH residents their rights here...

For state agents: "Any public servant of the State of New Hampshire as defined in RSA 640:2 that enforces or attempts to enforce a act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States upon a personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in New Hampshire and that remains within the State of New Hampshire shall be guilty of a class A misdemeanor."

Gets even worse if you are a federal agent of any kind...

"Any official, agent, or employee of the government of the United States, or employee of a corporation providing services to the government of the United States that enforces or attempts to enforce a act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States upon a personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in New Hampshire and that remains within the State of New Hampshire shall be guilty of a class B felony."

This is how you use the constitution to turn back federal encroachment upon the rights of the of the states. Interestingly, this falls in line with the Virginia Resolution of 1798, where James Madison asserted that states have the right to resist unconstitutional acts by the federal government, and are supposed to be the barrier between the encroachments of the federal government and the people of the state.

Simply beautiful!

(h/t Free Talk Live)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Then the US government fights back with provisions attached to federal funding, like the US federal highway funding. "Any state that doesn't have a seat belt law that matches is denied funding."

Phil Chroniger said...

I don't think you'll see that, unless they start doing this to multiple states, which will simply further sour public opinion towards the federal government. Thus, the powers that be would not be in power for much longer.

Texas is really starting to ratchet up the 10th Amendment talk, and states like Montana and a few others are looking at similar legislation (though not with the penalties for federal agents and such). This is starting to catch on in many different places.