My wife ran across an interesting article yesterday and asked if I’d write about it. So here goes.
NY Gov. Cuomo threatens to sue over proposed gun rights legislation
Now I rarely agree with Gov. Cuomo, and he’s certainly made more than his fair share of mistakes in the quotes in this article, but in this case he is correct: The Second Amendment Guarantee Act, as proposed by Congressman Collins (NY-27), is plainly unconstitutional and should be opposed by all fifty states and their citizens alike.
While the text of the bill was not available at the time I was writing this, what Rep. Collins proposes not only violates Article I, Section 8’s “general welfare” clause, but it violates both the 2nd and 10th Amendments as well.
Article I, Section 8 says that Congress can collect taxes and provide “for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”.
For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power?
The “general power” James Madison was referring to was the idea that the “general welfare” clause was meant to allow Congress to pass laws for anything they thought beneficial. On the contrary, according to Madison, the phrase “common defence and general welfare” meant that Congress could only spend money within their enumerated powers for the defense and the welfare of all the states. Rep. Collins clearly states that the purpose of this bill is to overturn New York’s SAFE Act, not the general welfare of the nation. Also, since the Second Amendment Guarantee Act sets as its standard federal regulations, all of which are violations of the 2nd Amendment, the act violates itself.
In short, this bill is an attempt to use federal legislation to fix a state problem, which is a violation of the 10th Amendment. Gov. Cuomo is wrong, because states do not posses rights, people posses rights. States do have sovereignty though, and this bill would be a blatant infringement on state sovereignty and a violation of the 10th Amendment’s limitation of the power of the federal government. Therefore it should be opposed, even if Rep. Collins’ goal of overturning the SAFE Act is laudable. If Rep. Collins feels so strongly that the SAFE Act is unconstitutional, he should work within the State of New York to get it repealed rather than abuse his position as a federal official to pass unconstitutional laws to advance his own personal agenda.
Oh, and Rep. Collins made one other factual error: While Gov. Cuomo did sign the NY SAFE Act, it was the legislature of the State of New York who passed the legislation in an underhanded and sneaky way. That makes me think maybe he should focus more of his attention on the corruption in Albany instead of using the federal government as his own personal veto of state law.
