Article – Judge: Federal firearms regulations trump Kansas gun law

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday rejected arguments that a Kansas law can shield from federal prosecution anyone owning firearms made, sold and kept in the state — a ruling that casts doubt on the legality of similar laws passed in nine states across the nation.

The decision handed down by U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten allows federal firearms charges against Shane Cox and Jeremy Kettler to stand. The ruling clears the way for their sentencing on Monday.

Jurors in November returned eight guilty verdicts against Cox, the owner of Tough Guys gun store in Chanute, under the National Firearms Act for illegally making and marketing unregistered firearms, including a short-barreled rifle and gun silencers. Kettler was found guilty on one count of possession of an unregistered silencer.

The Kansas Second Amendment Protection Act, which passed in 2013, says firearms, accessories and ammunition manufactured and kept within the borders of Kansas are exempt from federal gun control laws. Kansas modeled its law on a Montana law that an appeals court has found to be invalid, according to court filings.

You know, if the feds feel that enforcing federal law is strictly their domain, and come down on states when they try to enforce immigration law, then it seems it should cut both ways and that states can simply choose to ignore enforcing federal NFA laws.
==================================
Reminder: A dozen 10/22 mags for $104 delivered.

9 thoughts on “Article – Judge: Federal firearms regulations trump Kansas gun law

  1. i believe the court to be in error on this one and many others along the same lines. “rights not enumerated herein belong to the States, or to the individual”. if it doesn’t cross state lines and there’s no argument with another state the commerce clause does not apply. the commerce clause has been bastardized to include everything the govt wants to do, which is exactly what the founders didn’t want. maybe the new guy will fix that. pardon me while i hold my breathe…..

  2. The court is full of hogwash. Each State is a soverign entity, a soverign country.The federal governmnet can act ONLY upon the enumerated powers spelled out in the Constitution and on no others. Congress can only pass laws pertaining to the listed powers GRANTED to them BY THE SOVERIGN STATES. The Constitution is a legal contract in which the Soverign States contract with the federal governmnet to do listed (enumerated) items for the states (countries), They did this acting in a united manner. Read the Constitution and pay attentin to the wording, this is why united is spelled with a small u as opposwed to the capitol U. The states are acting or contractiong with the federal government in a united manner instead of acting as individual soverign nation states….

    • Most folks have absolutely no clue that we used to be “these United States”.
      F! autocorrect won’t even let me type it with a little u and s. Of course, most folks seem to think we are a democracy and seem to be oblivious to the concept of a constitutional representative republic.

  3. Quite a few states do it with weed and lots of cities do it with immigration. I suspect there are quite a few rural counties in the south and west where few if any firearm/ NFA arrests are made. Or certainly if we dig more we see the arrests that happen were an excuse to get known scumbags.

  4. The whole SBR shakedown is complete BS too…no one should have to pay extra and fill out more paperwork just because a firearm isn’t the length that Agent Busybody says it should be…

  5. Unfortunately, the current case law says this will stand. The Tenth Amendment has been effectively neutered since 1942 and the Wickard v Filburn decision. Short version: Filburn grew wheat on his own property to feed his chickens — the feds said they had jurisdiction under their farming regulations since if he didn’t grow the wheat he would have had to buy wheat and that purchased wheat might have “moved in interstate commerce.”

    Using that “logic” ANYTHING can be regulated by the federal government. Make yourself a sandwich? The feds could pass a law saying you can only use 1 slice of cheese — or requiring you to use 5 — and it would be “Constitutional” since if you didn’t make the sandwich you might go to Subway and their cheese might have crossed a state line.

    Wickard v Filburn is one of the most wrong-headed SCOTUS decisions ever made. One that desperately needs to be overturned. And yet almost no one knows about it or its impact on every aspect of our daily lives.

  6. Kansas isn’t enforcing Federal gun laws here people, these charges were brought at a federal level not state.
    Local law enforcement doesn’t enforce federal laws, unless the officer is also a TFO. Most states do have laws that mirror federal laws, such as drug laws. So, that may confuse some people in think local LEOs are really enforcing federal laws. Texas for example allows all NFA type firearms under state law as long as they have been register with the ATF. So, it only become a violation of state law, if its unregistered at the federal level. The person would be charged at a local level, but not federally unless a federal LE adopted the cases.
    I’ve been LEO for over 30 years and have never arrested anyone for violating a federal law, never!!!! State and Local LEOs though who have been cross trained and carry a TFO status can enforce some federal laws. That’s what Sheriff Joe was doing concerning immigration in Arizona until Obama pulled his deputies TFO status for immigration enforcement.

  7. Oh, one more thing the issue with the state constitution was a valid argument up until the ratification of the 14th amendment. That was truly the tipping point from state control to federal control.

    • Not really. The Fourteenth Amendment merely made the citizens of the several states into federal citizens as well — and that really only impacted them so far as extending the Bill of Rights’ protections to them.

      The feds had always been able to bring charges for violations of federal law — sedition and treason, for example — and the growth in federal criminal law occurred long after the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified. Blame that on World War I if you need a tipping point. Wilson and the “progressives” started passing federal laws wholesale and no one has managed to rein it in yet.

      The real “straw the broke the camel’s back” was the Wickard v Filburn decision. It gave the feds carte blance to do anything they liked, so long as they applied the fig leaf of “interstate commerce” to it in some fashion, no matter how tortured and unlikely.

Comments are closed.