Thanks. Pass it on.
The States Take Action
Ignored by federal public servants and cut off from any access to peaceful means of redress in congress or the courts, the people and their states are forced to take matters into their own hands.
A "constitutional" interpretation of the Constitution is in order, as the people begin to demand that a runaway Fed blatantly acting against the best interest of its people, return to a constitutional foundation, or risk being stripped of all power and abolished.
The federal government is the product of the Constitution, the contract between the people and their states which established and assigned specific limited powers to the federal government, which is to serve at the pleasure of the states and the people.
If the Constitution no longer stands, then there is NO federal government. The federal government exists only as a result of the Constitution. A very real crisis is at hand...
As a result, more than 32 states are rushing to pass Tenth Amendment legislation intended to remind the federal government of this reality. But the Obama regime is not listening.
Many of those states are also passing Second Amendment protections for their citizens, making it illegal for the Fed to threaten private gun rights, even in cases of "Martial Law." But the Fed has rejected all such state bills, claiming that "federal laws supersede state laws."
Reacting to an "unconstitutional" letter from Obama's ATF, which puts Tennessee on notice that the Fed will not recognize laws passed by the individual states under Tenth Amendment rights, Tennessee State Rep. Matthew Hill points out, -"Montana, Tennessee and all others, are SOVEREIGN states not subservient to the federal government. The Fed can send us letters all day long and it doesn't change the fact that we are allowed to govern ourselves, under the 10th amendment of the US Constitution."
A "constitutional" interpretation of the Constitution
All constitutional text must be read within the context of Amendment Ten... which clearly states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
Does the Constitution delegate the power to "confiscate and redistribute private wealth" to the federal government?
Does it delegate power to force "Cap and Trade" or so-called "Universal Health Care" upon the people and the states?
Does it delegate the power over private industry, such as banking, auto manufacturing, energy and the likes? - Or the power to disarm American citizens under any set of circumstances, real or imaginary?
No such powers were delegated to the federal government under the US Constitution. Unlike many ill-informed US citizens, Obama & Co. knows it. But they don't care...
Since no clause exists in the Constitution which specifically assigns any of these powers to the Fed, Amendment Ten applies... "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
The Second Amendment Example
Each clause of the Constitution must be read within the context of the Tenth Amendment. Power and authority is either specifically delegated to the Fed in the text of the Constitution, specifically withheld from the Fed by way of the Bill of Rights, or in the absence of any such reference to power and authority, the Tenth Amendment applies.
In the case of gun rights, the Founders specifically denied the Fed any power via the Bill of Rights, specifically prohibiting the Fed from playing around with the people's right to keep and bear arms.
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." -
Yet, operating in direct contradiction to this Second Amendment language, the federal government has assumed a power not assigned to it by the states, to regulate the right of the people to keep and bear arms. A case of the people's past silence, being intentionally misinterpreted as their consent, which allowed the fed to step across boundaries it is specifically prohibited from crossing in the Bill of Rights.
As a result, the states have been forced to restate their border sovereignty and state rights in new state sponsored legislation, including Second Amendment protections for their citizens who wish to keep and bear arms, whether anti-second amendment leftists in Washington DC like it or not.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
My home state of Tennessee passed both Tenth Amendment and Second Amendment legislation, supported in such number as to override our Democrat governor's attempts to veto.
But Obama's Fed responded by issuing a letter, under his Justice Department headed by Obama buddy Eric Holder, on the letterhead of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms signed by Assistant Director Carson Carroll, advising the state that "federal laws supersede states laws."
Like hell they do!
The states DO NOT serve at the pleasure of the Fed. The Fed exists and serves at the pleasure of the states, a FACT that most states seem in a rush to point out to Obamanation.
The US Constitution supersedes both state and federal laws. Don't confuse the US Constitution with federal laws, passed by congress or passed by judicial fiat via the courts. Federal laws take precedent over state laws ONLY in matters specifically delegated to the federal government in the Constitution. If no such authority is assigned to the Fed, then no such power exists at the Fed.
When the federal government makes laws pertaining to matters NOT assigned to it under the US Constitution, which it has had a habit of doing for decades now, both in congress and in the judicial branch, the states are in NO WAY bound by those laws. Those laws are by definition, unconstitutional, no matter how they were passed.
As the Second Amendment makes it quite clear that the federal government has NO power to regulate the people's right to keep and bear arms, and the Tenth Amendment clearly states that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."- Obama's Fed, Justice Department and ATF, have NO constitutional authority over the states in the matter...
Tennessee State Rep. Matthew Hill is exactly right. They (the Fed) can send threatening letters all day long and those letters are completely irrelevant, as they are at odds with the Constitution. The ATF letter relates to federal laws written on matters NOT assigned to the federal government to begin with, matters therefore reserved to the states and the people under the Tenth Amendment.
Even the overly politicized US Supreme Court has recently defended Second and Tenth Amendment rights in its related rulings.
