States v. Feds :: essays research papers

One of the most important cases pending before the Supreme Court this term is Printz v. United States. On the surface, Printz appears to be a gas control matter because it involves a original argufy to the hotly debated Brady law, but the underlying issue transcends the debate everyplace gun control. The Printz case is, at bottom, a b ar-knuckle fistfight between the federal official official and state governments over their respective turf. Make no mistake, the ruling in this case leave have profound consequences for constitutional federalism in America.The purvey of the Brady law be straightforward. The law requires the prospective buyer of a side arm to wait five business days before taking somatogenetic possession of the firearm. During the five day waiting period, local law enforcement officials are supposed to check the background of the prospective buyer for a deplorable record or mental instability. The ostensible purpose of the law is "to fall out guns out of the hands of criminals."The issue before the Supreme Court is whether coition can saddle state and local officials with federal legal responsibilities. The constitutional challenge was brought by Jay Printz, who is a sheriff in Ravalli County, Montana. Sheriff Printz claims that his understaffed office will be dangerously overextended if it must conduct time-consuming background checks on individuals who wish to purchase handguns. Printzs county has thirty thousand residents spread over 2,400 square miles only two deputies are on patrol at any given moment. According to Printz, deputies will have to be interpreted off patrol and investigative duties in order to do "Brady work." The rightness Department has countered that the Brady law only requires local law enforcement officials to make " credible" efforts at background checks.The outcome in Printz, however, will not sprain upon whether the Brady Law is "unduly" burdensome. The issue to be resolved is one of tenet Can the federal government conscript state agencies and resources for its own purposes? The resolve to that question is resolvable for anyone who takes seriously the text, history, and structure of the Constitution.The Constitution creates a federal government of enumerated powers. Most of the federal governments powers are mark off forth in article I, section 8, and a few others are dispersed throughout the constitutional text. The Tenth Amendment was appended to the Constitution to make it sink that the powers not delegated to the federal government "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.