Police power

An organized police power is clearly necessary in the Indian country and on the Mexican frontier, warned Harper s in a typical piece entitled The... 

The second part defines the scope of police powers in that, no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. This is... 

Although it involves a knife rather than a gun, this case illustrates two continuing themes that will be applied to firearm regulation (1) the question of whether the right to bear arms is collective or individual, and (2) the application of the police power of the state to the types of weapons people may have and the manner in which they may be carried. This case cast an early vote for the collective position and upheld the state s police power. 

This decision continues in the tradition of the keeping of arms being an individual right, but one exercised in the context of promoting a collective defense (the well-trained militia). The state s police power can prohibit weapons that are not suitable or customary for this purpose. The keeping of military weapons cannot be banned, but the manner of bearing them can be regulated. 

The decision suggests that the state s police power can be used to regulate how weapons can be carried but not completely prohibit it. It is also one of the relatively few decisions that seems to also apply the federal Second Amendment to the state, though it can be viewed as superfluous to the state constitution. 

Furthermore, the petitioner argued that the National Firearms Act was constructed and written in a way that made it clear that it was not intended to raise revenue but rather to discourage dealing in the specified weapons. He also argued that if the purpose of the tax was really to exercise a form of police power, that power belonged not to Congress but to the states. Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States. ... 

The court concluded that neither the common law nor the Constimtion conveyed an absolute right to carry weapons for individual self-defense. Therefore, there was scope for the state to exercise its police power in regulating the... 

The lower appeals court rejected the argument based on the Ohio Constitution, saying that the ordinance was a valid exercise of the police power. It did agree that part of the law did conflict with the U.S. code. The appellants then appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court. 

According to the appeals court, The primary legal issue is whether the Legislature has completely preempted the field of regulation of handgun sales. In the absence of state preemption, every municipality is authorized by the California Constitution to exercise its police power to deal with local situations. The idea of preemption is that a lower jurisdiction (such as a city) cannot make a law that deals with a matter that a higher jurisdiction (such as the state) has already definitively covered. The lower court found that the local ordinance was not preempted. 

In the Georgia case of Nunn v. State, the court says that the state can use its police power to ban some kinds of weapons (such as concealable handguns) but not all firearms. This marks a general trend where courts uphold gun control measures that can be justified as an exercise of the police power. 

Illinois Subject only to the police power, the right of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. (Article 1, Section 22)... 

A duly interposed demurrer alleged The National Firearms Act is not a revenue measure but an attempt to usurp police power reserved to the States, and is therefore unconstitutional. Also, it offends the inhibition of the Second Amendment to the Constitution— A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. ... 

U.S. 5 Alston v. United States (1927), 274 U.S. 289 Nigro v. United States (1928), 276 U.S. 332—the objection that the Act usurps police power reserved to the States is plainly untenable. 

The Committee drew attention to the fact that the PP allows authorities to extend their policing powers, and that the implementation of this concept will have major implications at the international level inasmuch as It enables countries to temporarily suspend their free trade commitments. The precautionary principle gives countries a sovereign right—and makes them the sole arbiter—on matters affecting the safety of their nationals. There is thus a stark contradiction with the EU Treaty. 21... 

The District Court held the section unconstimtional for the reason that it was not a revenue measure, and was an invasion of the police power reserved to the state. .. The case came to the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal. 

The four dissenting justices argued that die district court was correct in its belief that the Harrison Act actually represented an attempt by Congress to exercise a police power reserved to the states, in the guise of a tax measure. 

Until the passage of OBRA 1990 (Public Law 101-508), federal law in the pharmacy arena had been concerned primarily with drug product safety. OBRA 90, while not explicitly usurping the police powers of the states, required that to be eligible for federal matching... 

Under their police powers, states have the constitutional authority to require health care providers to report new cases of diseases. Although such reporting raises an issue concerning patient privacy, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the authority of states to require the collection of disease information. 

New police powers to curb chroming. ABC Online (Australia), Oct 27, 2003. 

Vaccination to prevent smallpox was widely adopted throughout Europe in the first quarter of the nineteenth century and by 1905 compulsory vaccination was upheld by the US Supreme Court as a valid exercise of a state s police power to protect public health. 

States have the police power to take regulatory actions to protect the public health, welfare, and safety of their citizens. Thus, states have the authority to license health care professionals and to dictate which health care professionals can prescribe medications. State statutes called Pharmacy Practice Acts dictate what duties pharmacists may perform. 

E. P. Richards and K. C. Rathbun, The role of the police power in 21st century public health, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, 26 350—357 Quly) 1999 p. 356. 

---