State prepares to challenge U.S. gun laws

'This is an issue where the federal government has no business'

By Bob Unruh
WorldNetDaily

Montana statehouse

Supporters of a first-of-a-kind law in Montana that declared weapons or ammunition made and kept in the state were exempt from federal rules are preparing for a court challenge to the federal government's insistence it will regulate those items.

The Montana Shooting Sports Association and the Second Amendment Foundation have formed a strategic alliance with plans to litigate over the Montana Firearms Freedom Act.

The bill was passed by the 2009 Montana Legislature and signed into law by Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer.

WND reported this spring when Montana drew a line in the sand and challenged the federal government to follow the U.S. Constitution with the law, which exempts from federal regulations any gun, gun accessory or ammunition made in the state and intended for use there.

The law provides guns and ammo made, sold and used in Montana would not require any federal forms; silencers made and sold in Montana would be fully legal and not registered; and there would be no firearm registration, serial numbers, criminal records check, waiting periods or paperwork required.

The idea is spreading quickly. Tennessee already has a similar law, and similar plans have been introduced in Alaska, Texas, Florida, South Carolina, Minnesota and Michigan. Lawmakers in nearly 20 other states have such plans in the works.

With President Obama placing anti-gun activists in influential positions, including an attorney general who supported a complete handgun ban in the District of Columbia before it was tossed by the U.S. Supreme Court, Montana's move is being called nothing less that revolutionary.

Montana's plan is called "An Act exempting from federal regulation under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution of the United States a firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition manufactured and retained in Montana."

The law cites the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that guarantees to the states and their people all powers not granted to the federal government elsewhere in the Constitution and reserves to the state and people of Montana certain powers as they were understood at the time it was admitted to statehood in 1889.

"The guaranty of those powers is a matter of contract between the state and people of Montana and the United States as of the time that the compact with the United States was agreed upon and adopted by Montana and the United States in 1889," the legislation states.

Full story HERE