Yeah, well that’s not exactly new. Noah Feldman makes the inconvenient point that no matter what you think about federal preemption and states’ rights, nothing about national reciprocity would be unconstitutional . . . Muddy Liberal Thinking on New Gun-Rights Law
It’s a terrible measure, to be sure, forcing states to allow people licensed to carry concealed weapons in one state to carry them anywhere else. But that doesn’t mean it’s unconstitutional, and liberals should be careful what they wish for.
To insist that the law is unconstitutional requires arguing that states have the ultimate right to legislate on guns. Yet if Congress were some day to prohibit concealed-carry everywhere, or to impose gun-control measures with teeth across the country, the same argument could be used to say that Congress lacks the authority to do so.
So liberals should be careful about borrowing the tools of constitutional conservatism to oppose the bill on states-rights grounds. Better to leave it to principled conservatives to challenge the bill as overstepping Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce. …
In order to bring the law within the purview of Congress’s power, the bill says that it applies to “a concealed handgun” that has “been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.” That’s every gun, pretty much. This formulation is intended to satisfy the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution.
Full article — at bloomberg.com — here.