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Supreme Court takes a gun forfeiture case
Posted by David Hardy · 20 October 2014 12:51 PM
The Court just granted cert. in Henderson v. U.S.. The issue: can a person who is convicted of a felony, and has firearms seized (because of his status as a felon, not because the guns were used in an offense), deal with it by selling them to another party, who does not have a felony record?
There's a recent law review article on just that topic.
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If the federal police power is limited, then how is the federal crimes; drugs, guns, etc lawful?
IMO, the worst point about these types of cases is that the federal government has only around 6 areas where they may enact and enforce criminal law and the criminal laws in this case are NOT within the feds purview.
One may read the 1798 Kentucky Resolves for clarity. Given that there are explicit grants of police power enumerated in the Constitution, any claim of implied police powers can only be viewed as lies or ignorance. Some will try to use the N&P clause to support the claim of implied powers but the N&P clause appears in the same section as specific grants of police power. Claiming the N&P implies police powers would negate the need for the explicit powers and imply that the Framers were plain stupid, unable to understand their own creation.
The federal government has police powers in counterfeiting, piracies and felonies on the high seas, offenses against the law of nations, and treason. I also add in copyright and patent because of the use of the word "secure". There are no grants of punishment powers in the in any of the amendments. As is demonstrated in the Constitution proper, punishment powers must be explicitly granted or no grant exists.