"Interstate Commerce" and gun registration

[Don Williams]

Re Clayton Cramer's question on the relevance of the "interstate commerce" clause to gun registration, I mentioned it because (a) Congress has based a number of gun control actions on it's power to regulate interstate commerce --e.g., the "Gun Free School Zones Act of 1990" and (b) The Supreme Court finally moved to restrain Congress' abuse of that power in US vs Lopez (1995).  See their opinion at http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-1260.ZS.html . My understanding is that Congress' rationale for the  Gun Control Act of 1968 was actually "to provide for better control of the interstate traffic in firearms".   See http://www.atf.gov/pub/fire-explo_pub/gca.htm . It also seems to me that the wording of the  1934 National Firearms Act (control of automatic weapons)is based largely on Congress' power to regulate commerce and to tax.