United States v. Lopez

The Court held that the Gun-Free School Zones Act exceeded the commerce power, the first federal statute struck on that ground in six decades.

Overview

Alfonzo Lopez carried a handgun into a San Antonio high school and was charged under a federal law barring guns near schools. Chief Justice Rehnquist, for a 5-4 majority, held that gun possession in a school zone is not economic activity substantially affecting interstate commerce, distinguishing decades of expansion of the commerce power and affirming that it has outer boundaries preserving traditional state domains. Lopez ended the era in which anything connected to the economy counted as interstate commerce, revived enforceable federalism limits, and symbolized the Rehnquist Court's federalism revolution.