Editing United States v. Lopez
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|facts=Lopez, then a 12th-grade student, carried a concealed handgun into his high school. | |facts=Lopez, then a 12th-grade student, carried a concealed handgun into his high school. | ||
|procedural_history=Lopez was charged with violating the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. He challenged the act as beyond the scope of congressional power under the commerce clause. | |procedural_history=Lopez was charged with violating the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. He challenged the act as beyond the scope of congressional power under the commerce clause. | ||
|issues=Was it within Congress' power to legislate the Act? Does the area of regulation fall within activities having a substantial relation to | |issues=Was it within Congress' power to legislate the Act? Does the area of regulation fall within activities having a substantial relation to interstate commerce? | ||
|arguments=U.S. argues that possession of a firearm in a school zone may result in violent crime and that violent crime can be expected to affect the national economy in 2 ways: 1) increase of insurance costs throughout the country; 2) reduction of travel to the area in which the violent crime occurred. Also, guns could handicap the educational process, which will reduce citizen productivity, which will have an adverse effect to the national economy. Therefore, Congress could have rationally concluded that the act affects interstate commerce. | |arguments=U.S. argues that possession of a firearm in a school zone may result in violent crime and that violent crime can be expected to affect the national economy in 2 ways: 1) increase of insurance costs throughout the country; 2) reduction of travel to the area in which the violent crime occurred. Also, guns could handicap the educational process, which will reduce citizen productivity, which will have an adverse effect to the national economy. Therefore, Congress could have rationally concluded that the act affects interstate commerce. | ||
|holding=* '''Renquist (Majority)''': Statute has nothing to do with commerce or any sort of economic enterprise. There are no congressional findings that support that gun possession at a school will have any effect on interstate commerce. If the reduction of citizen productivity is enough to empower Congress, where does it stop? (Family law, etc. could be involved by the same reasoning). Possession of a gun in a local school zone is in no sense an economic activity that might, through repetition elsewhere, substantially affect any sort of interstate commerce. | |holding=* '''Renquist (Majority)''': Statute has nothing to do with commerce or any sort of economic enterprise. There are no congressional findings that support that gun possession at a school will have any effect on interstate commerce. If the reduction of citizen productivity is enough to empower Congress, where does it stop? (Family law, etc. could be involved by the same reasoning). Possession of a gun in a local school zone is in no sense an economic activity that might, through repetition elsewhere, substantially affect any sort of interstate commerce. |