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Originally Posted by JD
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I challenge you to provide a provision of the federal Constitution or federal case law indicating that "encouraging the right thing" suffices as an independent basis for federal authority.
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In that case, I direct you to Footnote 4, of the decision in United States v Carolene Products Co 304 U.S. 144 (1938) The birthplace of the standards of review. All three standards suggest the law must serve a government interest- While both that phraseology and "doing the right thing" are exceedingly vague, I believe encouraging its citizenry to do the right thing is a government interest.
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JD, you are correct that the term "governmental interest" will be found in the tests applied to determine the constitutionality of the challenged law. In the case of a fundamental liberty, here the right to keep and bear arms, that governmental interest must be compelling and the legislation involved must be narrowly tailored. Some decisions note that the burden imposed by the challenged legislation should be the "least burdensome".
Mere allegation of a governmental interest in itself is not sufficient to establish constitutionality. It is also not plain that "encouraging the right thing" is itself a governmental interest. People have all sorts of different ideas about what "the right thing" is and the process of moral persuasion is not ideally relegated to the federal government.