H219: Idaho House Committee

I was listening to Kevin Miller's program on 580 KIDO this morning.  He had a couple members of the lower house on the program.  Rep. Hartgen is one of the sponsors of H219, a bill that criminalizes enforcement of any new federal gun control law, and prohibits state or local law enforcement from such enforcement.  There is a hearing tomorrow morning (9:00 AM, I gather) in the House State Affairs Committee; I gather that he wants us to fill the meeting room to show support for the bill.

I called into the program on my way to work and explained that this isn't crazy, nor is it nullification.  The U.S. Supreme Court in Printz v. U.S. (1997) held that the Tenth Amendment means that state and local officials are not obligated to enforce federal law:

We adhere to that principle today, and conclude categorically, as we concluded categorically in New York: "The Federal Government may not compel the States to enact or administer a federal regulatory program." Id., at 188. The mandatory obligation imposed on CLEOs to perform background checks on prospective handgun purchasers plainly runs afoul of that rule.