Local guns, local foods: natural allies?

September 15, 5:49 PMDallas Libertarian ExaminerGarry Reed

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On April 15, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer dipped his pen in gun oil and signed the "Exempt Montana-made firearms and ammunition from commerce clause" bill into law.

The legislation, better known as the Montana Firearms Freedom Act (MFFA), goes into effect on October 1.

What the new law says, once the text has been disinfected of legalspeak, is that all firearms, firearm related accessories and ammo that are produced, sold and retained within the boundaries of Big Sky Country are not subject to the Constitution's interstate commerce clause.

This is a direct slap in the face of all those federal government and Supreme Court power-grabbers who have, decade after decade, performed contortionist's double-jointed backflips and somersaults to use the interstate commerce clause as a pretext for regulating every product that could ever possibly be sold across state lines whether they actually are or not.

A similar action has already been enacted in Tennessee and has been introduced in the legislatures of five other states, including Texas.

The Firearms Freedom Act website calls it a "state’s rights exercise" and a "Tenth Amendment challenge."

And before the gun-phobic liberal left dismisses these developments as the wet dreams of western hicks and southern hillbillies they should note that one of those other states considering the Firearms Freedom Act is the Al Franken Walter Mondale Hubert Humphrey birthplace of Communist Party USA leader Gus Hall liberal state of Minnesota.

A handgun on the hip at the rural roadside produce stand means guns
and groceries go hand in hand. Right? (AP photo)

All of which should make natural allies (or at least strange bedfellows) of the Local Food Movement.

Sometimes known as locavores inspired by The 100-Mile Diet, these folks are foodies who won't go the extra mile, seeking out farmers markets and produce stands for fresh organic foodstuffs as close to home as possible in a (quoting the Wikipedia article on the subject) "collaborative effort to build more locally based, self-reliant food economies."

In many places that means never crossing a state line, and a Food Freedom Act version of the Firearms Freedom Act would preclude the power of the FDA to regulate the production and sale of, for example, free-range eggs and raw milk and homemade goat cheese.

Hand grown 'maters and hand loaded ammo – the feds should keep
their hands off of both. Right?

In fact, FFA type legislation could be applied to every locally produced product in America, turning the libertarian-led freedom movement into a noncoercive revolution and leading to a bloodless coup against the power-addicted politicos who sit on Capitol Hill as though it's a bejeweled throne.

Georgia could keep their peaches and their sweet Vidalia onions at home and flip the bird at the big gov bureaucrats.

And those Napa Sonoma Mendocino wineries that don't ship their California wines across state lines could ignore the interstate regulators.

And if Boston kept their baked beans at home they could sell to Bay Staters without jumping through the hoops and hoopla of the Federal Bean Inspectors.

And the GM assembly plant in Arlington, Texas, could declare its independence, secede from Government Motors and go back to building big ol' good ol' boy honkin' gass-hoggin' Suburbans and SUVs and 220 horsepower diesel engine all wheel drive six ton crew cab pickup trucks with dualies and roll bars and gun racks in the back window for those High Standard semi-auto rifles and carbines manufactured in Houston.

Of course the officious power obsessed officials in the country's capital won't give up an ounce of authority without a fight. They'll litigate, confront, coerce, extort and use every other rotten ruse in the political playbook to keep and increase their domination over everything and everyone within their iron-fingered grip.

The lines have already been drawn.

The Obamabots, to no one's surprise, quickly declared the Montana and Tennessee Firearms Freedom Acts to be "invalid." The federal anti-firearms fanatics at the BATF have declared, "because the act conflicts with federal firearms laws and regulations, federal law supersedes the act." (CBS News)

On the other side, "The Montana Shooting Sports Association (MSSA) and the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) have formed a strategic alliance to litigate the principles of the Montana Firearms Freedom Act (MFFA)." (Liberty For All)

So the states will have to keep the laws coming fast and furiously. As one Freedom Act gets beaten back, overturned and supreme-courted out of existence another slightly different law needs to be enacted to start the whole process over again.

In short, keep lighting state's rights brushfires faster than the feds can extinguish them until they relearn the liberty lessons they never should have forgotten.

So what about it foodies and firearms fans? Are you on the same page? If you don't fight for everyone's rights you can't expect anyone to fight for your rights.

That's the funny thing about rights, they apply equally to everyone; the freedom to shoot and the freedom to eat shoots are the same freedom.