‘Gimme Shelter’

One thing that comes to mind as I travel the country to talk about the Constitution is the lyrics from the Rolling Stones song “Gimme Shelter”:

The floods is threat’ning
My very life today
Gimme, gimme shelter
Or I’m gonna fade away

For today it seems that all over the country government officials and ordinary citizens alike are reacting to the expansion in power of the federal government by turning for shelter to the Constitution.

Here in Salt Lake City, Utah, where this column is being written, the newspapers are lit up over the State-Made Firearms Protection Act, which would give Utah, as the measure is characterized by a columnist of the Salt Lake Tribune, Peg McEntee, the sole right to regulate firearms manufactured and sold for in-state use. “The idea,” says Ms. McEntee, “is to claim the state’s rights under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.”

Or, to put it another way, the state is seeking the shelter of the Constitution against the danger of the federal government will to come in with national legislation to regulate firearms. It fears that Congress might try to use its powers to regulate commerce among the states to come to restrict guns and ammunition in Utah. It wants to mark the point that if the guns are made and sold in-state for in-state use, then the federal government lacks constitutional authority to impose restrictions………

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