Texas suppressor law

[Stuohn101]

Can anyone please explain this new law?

Pros? Cons? Hurdles?

Not sure why I haven't even heard this was even being considered until it was signed.

Are there any other states that have similar laws?

[dogtown tom]

In short:
Repeals criminalization of suppressor possession apart from Federal regulations. (TX Penal Code 46.05(a)(6).)
Establish a class of “Made in Texas” suppressors that must be manufactured in Texas from Texas-made parts, must stay in Texas, and are exempt from Federal regulations.
Give a path to secure a declaratory judgment on the constitutionality of this law before someone manufactures “Made in Texas” suppressors.

It's political theater and will have no effect other than confusing the public.
-States can't invalidate federal law. (see Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution).
-an item or product does not have to leave a state or be made from materials in a state to affect interstate commerce.

Kansas and a few other states have passed similar "firearm freedom" laws.
The USSC denied cert on a case involving two guys in Kansas. They can no longer possess or use firearms.

[raimius]

Unless SCOTUS wants to reconsider Wickard v Filburn, it won't really help.

[44 AMP]

Unless SCOTUS wants to reconsider Wickard v Filburn, it won't really help.

that is one decision the Court really should revisit.

it boggles my mind how they could rule that something that wasn't sold could have an effect on interstate commerce to the point where the Fed govt authority over it.

Logically it seems to be fallacy. Am I missing something or is it just what it appears, tremendous govt overreach??

[zukiphile]

Am I missing something or is it just what it appears, tremendous govt overreach??

If you can't understand how things not in commerce at all and entirely within the borders of a state were exactly what people thought of when they ratified a documents with the words "to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states...", then you will just have to give up your ambitions to be a Sup Ct justice.

[Aguila Blanca]

It was those same Supreme Court justics who bought into the rather sketchy (in my layman's view) theory that if I grow a marijuana plant, in my back yard, and I smoke the weed that I grew in my own home and never give or sell it to anyone, even though MY weed has never been in interstate commerce -- because by growing my own I therefore did NOT have to buy marijuana that might have been grown in another state I have "affected" interstate commerce, and therefore my home-gown, totally local marijuana that has never left my property still falls within the purview of the interstate commerce clause.

And that's why all these state "locally-made guns are safe" laws fail -- because even if all the machining is done in state, and the product is sold and used within the state, the steel and/or plastic used to make the gun probably comes from another state (if not from another country).

Interstate commerce.

[Aguila Blanca]

Discussion: https://thereload.com/analysis-the-r...-silencer-law/

[zukiphile]

Originally Posted by AB

And that's why all these state "locally-made guns are safe" laws fail -- because even if all the machining is done in state, and the product is sold and used within the state, the steel and/or plastic used to make the gun probably comes from another state (if not from another country).

Interstate commerce.

The logic of Wickard is worse than you portray.

If you grow your own grapes, weed or wheat, or make your own suppressor entirely from materials that originate in your own state, and you never place them in commerce, you have had an effect on interstate commerce because you aren't showing up in the interstate market looking for grapes, weed, wheat or a suppressor. Your absence from the interstate market is your presence in it.

One of the primary purposes of the Act in question was to increase the market price of wheat, and, to that end, to limit the volume thereof that could affect the market. It can hardly be denied that a factor of such volume and variability as home-consumed wheat would have a substantial influence on price and market conditions. This may arise because being in marketable condition such wheat overhangs the market, and, if induced by rising prices, tends to flow into the market and check price increases.

Wickard at 128.

It leaves one wondering whether Orwell was a plagiarist.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by zukiphile

The logic of Wickard is worse than you portray.

You're right -- it is worse than I imagined.

Not only Orwell -- Lewis Carroll, too.

[zukiphile]

I see four broad lessons to draw from this commerce clause critique.

1. Very real constitutional restrictions on government power are not a durable obstacle to politically popular overreach. Eventually the political process will corrupt the legal process.

2. A critique of constitutional jurisprudence on a point can be well reasoned, coherent and faithful to constitutional text, yet not be current law. That doesn't mean that the critique doesn't matter, or shouldn't be spoken. that the current law departs from the best critique is all the more reason to speak it.

3. Explaining the current state of jurisprudence on an issue isn't an endorsement of that condition.

4. One can see the political realities, explain the state of the law, and critique the state of the law all without the accuracy of anyone point being diminished by the accuracy of the other two. It's an error to dismiss one of the points because of the other two.



This applies to the 2d Am. and Heller as well.

1. Despite strongly worded constitutional text, the legal protection of the right will ultimately be determined politically. The Las Vegas/bump stock episode illustrates that.

2. One can coherently observe the thin margin in Heller and persuasively assert that it was a victory secured by qualifying tests like "presumptively lawful" and "in common use" that don't appear in the amendment itself, and that the 2d Am. calls for a wider protection than is described in Heller. Asserting that "infringed" should serve to protect not the core of the right, but the right all the way out to its edges isn't nutty just because the Court landed elsewhere a dozen years ago.

3. Explaining that traditional prohibitions on possession by released felons, adjudicated incompetents, or inside government buildings aren't upset by Heller isn't itself an endorsement of Heller's limits.