US Vs. Lopez Case Study

For example, in California, a young male came into an elementary school with a 7.62x39 semi-automatic rifle and shot and killed four children. After this tragedy, the Fourth Circuit court ruled that assault style weapons are not protected by the ruling made by the Supreme Appellate Court in the case DC v Heller. (The Monitor, Mar. 2010). Just like in California, other areas of the country were having the same debate on just how far the Supreme Court decision on the second amendment protecting the right to self defense goes. In MaryLand, within the fourth circuit of appeals (National Review, Feb. 2017), assault style weapons were also banned. This included certain handguns which was against the decision in Heller v DC.

However, Lopez’s trouble did not stop here. Soon after, the Federal government petitioned for the Supreme Court to review the case, and they accepted. Attorneys for the United States contended that the law was an appropriate use of power under the interstate Commerce Clause. The government was obligated to show that Section 922 was a valid exercise of Congressional power under the Commerce Clause, and that this section regulated a matter that affected interstate commerce. The government’s case was made up from one principle argument. They argued that the possession of a firearm in an educational environment would most likely lead to violent crimes, which, in turn, would affect the general economic condition in one of two ways: First, because violent crime causes damagers and creates expenses, it would raise insurance costs. These insurance costs would be spread

During the supreme court case U.S v. Lopez, the United States Federal Government’s argument was that carrying a firearm inside an educational environment would lead to a violent crime. A violent crime ultimately affects the population of a school. Due to this, the federal government believed that the commerce clause should be practiced in this case. The Supreme Court backed the previous decision offered by the Five Court of Appeals. In United States v. Lopez, the U.S Supreme Court stated that Congress actually has the ability to make laws under the Clause, but these powers were limited and could not affect the Lopez case.

Facts: John Angus Smith attempted to trade a Mac 10 machine gun for 2 ounces of cocaine. Smith was then arrested for possession of cocaine and a fully automatic weapon. Federal law requires a mandatory minimum prison sentence for 30 years if a machine gun is "used" in the commission of a drug offense, and because these two things were used in conjunction, Smith was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Goss v. Lopez was a case of the Supreme Court, where Goss was the Apellant and Lopez was the Appellee. The case was argued in October 1974 and was decided in January 1975. The facts of the case were in high school in Ohio, with nine students from two secondary schools and a junior high school student. Students were suspended for a period of ten days to be involved in misconduct within the high school. The principal asked to one of these students Tyrone Washington to leave the auditorium, Tyrone was part of a group of students demonstrating in the auditorium. He refused to leave the auditorium and the police tried to force him out, another young Rudolph Sutton physically attacked the policeman, the other students were suspended for similar misconduct.

Prior to this case there were two forms of gun control acts the first was that of 1968 which forbids gun sells to sell guns to people that have a felony charge that are mentally unstable and other things this was amended with the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act which included the need to have a background check. While working to make a system that could make the check fast it had to be done by state law enforcement. People however started to claim that this act was unconstitutional and it violated their rights given to them under the Constitution. The Petitioners filed separate actions challenging the constitutionality of the Brady Act’s interim provisions and in each case the District

There have been many pieces of legislation on the state level and on the congressional level regarding guns on school property. A very polarized piece of legislation was introduced in the Nevada Senate. Nevada Senate Bill 286 was created in response to several violent acts involving school shootings (Taylor, 2008). The bill would have given teachers the right to possess and carry guns on school property regardless if the school is a gun-free zone as long as the teacher possessed proper permits the bill specifically required the teacher to possess a concealed weapon permit along with a proof of completion of a specific firearm training program (“SB286,” n.d.). The bill did not pass in the Nevada Senate, but the bill did help to start the much-needed conversation about the ineffectiveness methods of the prevention of school shootings.

Factual History: In Los Angeles, California during the month of October and year of 2009, Abel Lopez was attacked and robbed by a man with a knife, he later identified as Walter Fernandez. During the confrontation between Lopez and Fernandez, Fernandez informed Lopez the territory in which Lopez was ruled by the “Drifters” After Lopez placed a call to 911, a few minutes after the attack, police and paramedics arrived on the scene. Two Los Angeles police officers, Detective Clark and Officer Cirrito, drove to a nearby alley that was often contained members of the Drifters gang. Here in the ally, a witnesses told them that the suspect was in an apartment in a house located off the

President George H.W. Bush signed the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 into law on November 29, 1990, making it a federal offense for “any individual to knowingly possess a firearm at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone.” Subsequently, in United States v. Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995), the Supreme Court held that the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 was unconstitutional as it violated the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution. In reaching this 5-4 Supreme Court decision, Chief Justice Rehnquist, in concurrence with Justices O’Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, and Thomas wrote the majority opinion, correctly determining that Congress lacked authority to pass this law as, even if replicated throughout schools across the United States, the carrying of a gun to school was not a sufficient economic activity that would substantially affect interstate commerce. Contrarily, Justices Breyer, Stevens, Souter and Ginsberg dissented, opining that the Act’s prohibition against firearms in schools had a sufficient connection with interstate commerce and thus, Congress’ application of the Commerce Clause was appropriate. In finding a substantial connection between gun-related school violence and interstate commerce the minority dissenting opinion relied on evidence that gun-related violence near schools is a commercial problem that interferes with the quality of education and thus relates to economic viability, giving Congress

Lopez, 514 U.S. 549 (1995) where Congress made it unlawful to have a gun in a school zone under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. In March of 1992, high school senior Alphonso Lopez Jr. was arrested with an unloaded concealed firearm and bullets while school property and violating the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. Lopez was convicted and he appealed the courts decision all the way to the Supreme Court. He appealed his conviction on the grounds that Congress exceeded its constitutional authority under the Commerce Clause and had no authority to pass this law affecting public schools.

The strongest challenge to the constitutionality of the statute is found in the United States Supreme Court case United States v. Lopez. The Court in Lopez found an anti-gun law in school zones unconstitutional because guns in school zones do not substantially affect interstate commerce. In Lopez, the Court delineated three categories able to be regulated by Congress under the Commerce clause of the Constitution. The three categories in which Congress may regulate commerce are: (1) “the use of the channels of interstate commerce,” (2) “the instrumentalities of

For my first civics project, I took advantage of the online opportunity and chose to watch an argument of the Florida Supreme Court v. Dale Norman. This particular case was taken to the supreme court to decided whether Mr. Norman was protected under the constitution for carrying an open weapon (non concealed) in Florida. In Florida it is illegal to carry an open weapon in public but he claimed that due to the second amendment, it was his constitutional right. In the end, the Supreme Court decided that Florida's law for concealment does not violate the constitution because the right and the ability to defend yourself with a firearm does not directly have anything to do with having the weapon concealed or open. Here is the link I used to find

America has always prided itself on being the land of the free. Our national Constitution and Bill of Rights have ensured that the people of America maintain their basic rights. Nevertheless, many of the rights guaranteed in these historic documents are often the subject of heated debate. The right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against self-incrimination, the First Amendment’s protection of speech and petitioning activity, all of these issues have been subject to contentious arguments in courts of law and the courts of public opinion. Of late, however, the most lengthy, argumentative and noisy debates have focused on gun control. Some people think that

The case of United States v. Lopez begins with Congress passing the Guns-Free School Zone Act under the Commerce Clause. Alfonso Lopez

In our society today it is viewed almost as a sin to carry a handgun into or around a public school. With school shootings bombarding news and media it seems that our whole society is against the usage of any weapon, especially guns. Even with the second amendment and commerce clause applied, congress still seems to control the usage of any weapons a person may own through laws and regulation. However in the case of United States v Lopez, one man, Alfonzo Lopez, appeals to the Supreme Court and may forever affect the relation Congress has within public schools.