Gun Rights and the 10th Amendment

The Wall Street Journal's Jess Bravin profiles the efforts of Montana activist Gary Marbut, who hopes to use the case for gun rights as a method to roll back federal regulatory power:

For years, Mr. Marbut argued that a wide range of federal laws, not just gun regulations, should be invalid because they were based on an erroneous interpretation of Congress's constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce. In his corner were a handful of conservative lawyers and academics. Now, with the rise of the tea-party movement, the self-employed shooting-range supplier finds himself leading a movement.

Eight states have adopted his Firearms Freedom Act, which Mr. Marbut conceived as a vehicle to undermine federal authority over commerce.

Ten state attorneys general, dozens of elected officials and an array of conservative groups are backing the legal challenge he engineered to get his constitutional theory before the Supreme Court. A federal appeals court in San Francisco is now considering his case.

Read the whole story here.