United States v. Lopez

• Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942).
• Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 (1964).
• Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294 (1964).
• Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U.S. 183 (1968).
• League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 183 (1968).
• Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U.S. 528 (1985).
• Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U.S. 452 (1991).

After the Supreme Court overturned the Gun Free School Zone Act of 1990 in Lopez, reactions were mixed. A comparison of articles that appeared in the New Republic and USA Today, for instance, might leave one wondering if the commentators were even talking about the same case. "The Lopez decision is good news for liberal constitutionalists," wrote the New Republic's Jeffrey Rosen, who criticized "The mindless impulse to federalize crimes that the states are prosecuting perfectly well on their own . . . If any law falls outside the limits of Congress's power to `regulate Commerce . . . ' the Gun Free School Zones Act is it." To Herb Kohl in USA Today, however, "The Supreme Court's 5-4 decision . . . cripples Congress's power to fight violence in our schools and raises questions about the federal government's ability to protect its citizens."

Meanwhile, the passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 gave pundits much more to debate with regard to the federal government's attempts to fight crime at the state and local level.

Sources

Kohl, Herb. "Keep Schools Gun Free." USA Today, 3 May 1995.

Rosen, Jeffrey. "Fed Up: Gun Free School Zones Act of 1990 Justifiably Overturned by U.S. Supreme Court." New Republic, 22 May 1995.