The South Dakota Legislature recently passed SB 89 which declares “exempt from federal regulation any firearm, firearm accessory, or ammunition manufactured and retained in South Dakota.”
Now, a little more than a week later, South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds has signed the bill into law.
The bill is the latest of many crafted in states across the country in the last year which re-assert the Tenth Amendment rights of the states which have been carelessly trampled by the federal government for decades.
The Tenth Amendment declares
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
And while Article 1 Section 8 (also known as the enumerated powers) of the U.S. Constitution empowers the federal government “[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes,” obviously the regulation of firearms and ammunition manufactured and retained in the state of South Dakota is not among the powers of the federal government.
As the federal government has radically overstepped is constitutional limitations in the past year or so, an explosion of states have begun re-asserting their rights not only with regard to firearms, but also in shielding themselves against government health care, cap and trade global warming taxes, and more.
cross-posted from DakotaVoice.com
CLICK HERE to view the Tenth Amendment Center’s printable Firearms Freedom Act Brochure (pdf)
CLICK HERE to view the Tenth Amendment Center’s Firearms Freedom Act Legislative Tracking Page
This act wasn't necessary, as the federal government can only lawfully regulate INTER-state commerce not INTRA-state commerce.
This is great. Every state needs to reassert the its and its citizens sovereignty. Just wondering however, maybe the BATF will be coming in droves arresting manufacturers and or dealers of, for example, automatic weapons, just as the DEA continues to do to state sanctioned sellers of cannabis in other states. Hope not, but I fear it is too late to reign in the beast with legislation alone.
Now that several states have passed Firearms Freedom Acts specifying that any firearms manufactured and retained within the state are exempt from Federal regulation, the question arises: Do any of those states actually have such manufacturing? If not, will this perhaps spur such industry?