Article I Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states. ..."
Part of America's economic success is certainly attributable to the historic interstate "free trade zone" thus created.
But in this century, Congress has taken to pretending these few words grant it the power to circumvent virtually any restriction on its power.
One of the most onerous examples was the enactment by the 1990 Democratic congress of so-called federal "gun-free school zones," outlawing by federal statute the possession of firearms by otherwise law-abiding Americans within a fixed distance of a schoolhouse or school property.
In one of its finest decision of recent years, the United States Supreme Court, ruling in the 1995 case U.S. vs. Lopez, said that is nonsense. The "commerce clause" does not permit Washington to regulate anything that's bought or sold, anywhere in the land, if the main thrust of their action does nothing to promote peaceful, duty-free interstate commerce.
Furious at this minor rebuff to his now-almost-limitless power, and demonstrating the scorn in which he holds his own oath to protect and defend the Constitution, President Clinton immediately ordered Attorney General Janet Reno to "find a way around" the Lopez ruling.
Now they think they have.
Wedged into omnibus spending bill HR 3610, signed into law by the president late on the night of Sept. 30, is a page called Treasury-Postal Section 657.
Once again, we read that "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," blah blah blah.
Once again, citing the powers of the "interstate commerce clause," this section -- also known as the Kohl amendment -- declares "It shall be unlawful for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm that has moved in interstate commerce at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone."