* Original: FROM..... Roy J. Tellason (1:270/615.0)
* Original: TO....... all (1:114/428)
* Original: FORUM.... 10TH_AMD
* Forwarded by Silver Xpress 
 (1:114/428)
* Forwarded (from: PR_NET) by Roy J. Tellason using timEd 1.01.
* Originally from Jerry Lopiccolo (176:500/0) to All.
* Original dated: Oct 16 '97, 00:47
Message-ID: 
Newsgroups: PRN
October 6, 1997
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Monday rejected two constitutional 
attacks on a federal law that makes it a crime to own or sell a machine gun. 
The justices, without comment, turned away appeals from Pennsylvania and 
xas
that challenged Congress' authority to enact the law as part of its 
gulation
of interstate commerce. 
Both appeals relied heavily on a 1995 Supreme Court ruling that threw out a 
federal ban on possession of guns within 1,000 feet of a school. 
In that decision, the court said the 1990 Gun-Free School Zones Act
had "nothing to do with commerce or any sort of economic enterprise, however 
broadly one might define those terms." 
Congress may enact laws under its power to regulate interstate commerce only 
to control activity that "substantially" affects such commerce, the 1995 
ruling said. 
In the Pennsylvania case acted on Monday, Raymond Rybar Jr. was convicted of 
possessing and transferring two machine guns at a Monroeville gun show in 
1992. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison and fined $100. 
In the Texas case, William Kirk was convicted of violating the federal law in 
1988. He sold an M-16 machine gun near Dripping Springs, Texas. He was 
sentenced to a year and a day in prison and fined $3,000. 
Both men challenged the constitutionality of the law used to prosecute them, 
but lower federal courts upheld the law in both cases. 
In his Supreme Court appeal, Rybar's lawyers argued that the federal law 
banning possession or transfer of a machine gun fails the standard the 
preme
Court set in 1995 because his sale to a fellow Pennsylvanian had no 
substantial effect on interstate commerce. The appeal said lower court 
lings
"have been characterized by uncertainty, confusion and, in some instances, a
downright hostile refusal to take the (1995) decision at face value." 
Kirk's appeal contended that the federal law wrongly usurps power from the 
states. 
The challenged federal law was upheld in the Pennsylvania case by a 2-1 vote 
of a three-judge panel for the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 
The Texas challenge was rejected by a 2-1 vote of a three-judge panel in the 
5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That ruling was upheld by an 8-8 vote of 
the entire 5th Circuit court last February. 
In urging the justices to reject the two appeals, Clinton administration
lawyers noted that the six federal appeals courts to study the law have 
held
it. "In the absence of a conflict in the circuits, the ... conclusion that 
e
statute is constitutional does not warrant this court's review," the 
government lawyers said. 
[http://cnn.com/US/9710/06/scotus/machinegun.html]
-- 
CULater Jerry
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