The government claims there is a legal distinction between prohibition and regulation. Strangely we can find not practical difference between the two.
Prohibition, as in alcoholic beverages, required a constitutional amendment to delegate a new power to the federal government. Regulation, what that is much different, it is under the interstate commerce clause and the tariff clause and has always been there. Without nothing it was rather strange our grandparents did not notice they did not need an amendment to ban alcoholic beverages, it is certainly interesting to note an even greater prohibition can be accomplished by calling it regulation rather than prohibition.
Consider the government does not ban drugs, it regulates them. While drugs containing alcohol, elixers, were never prohibited the chances of a doctor prescribing marijuana to keep a glaucoma patient from going blind or to control nausea under chemotherapy are slim and none.
The government is not banning guns, it is regulating some guns. The government does not ban discrimination, it regulates discrimination. The government regulates all drugs even those determined not to be drugs.
Where did the government or anyone get the idea the federal government we delegated this power to the government? It is certainly not in the US Constitution and if not there it was not delegated. If it was not delegated the federal government has no such power, period, the weaseling of the interstate commerce clause not withstanding. That is the argument that if 1/100 of 1% of an activity goes across state lines then 100% of it can be regulated.
But then, that is the reason discrimination is regulated. The government has determined the legal minorities in this country. If you have ever filled out a form that asks you to "check your racial status" the choices you have are the only legal choices. Thus you can be either an Indian living in the United States or you can be an Hispanic. You can not be an Indian living in Mexico.
In fact it is illegal for the government to give a medical research grant to study indians with Hispanic surnames and that would be creating an unregulated class of minority. When the government regulates something it regulates reality at the same time.
Consider drugs that regulators determine have no medical use when drugs are by definition those substances which have medical use. I am not attempting to argue the definition of the word drug. I am pointing out the Food and Drug Administration was established to regulate the purity and claims of drugs for use in medicine.
If a substance has no medical utility then it is not a drug within the meaning of the charter of the FDA. Yet the FDA regulates substances which are not within the definition by its own charter. Of course this begs the entire question of the power of the government to regulate food and drugs in any manner whatsoever. It is not a delegated power in the Constitution.
Now it may be a good idea for the federal government to do such regulation and that is what the amendment process of the constitution was designed to do, add additional delegations to the federal government.
Here is another one for those of us who started driving pre-Nixon. Whence came the power to regulate highway speed? Whence came the power to determine the daylight saving time zone of the states? Cincinnati used to keep Central Daylight Time until the law required states to be uniform. Now Greater Cincinnati Airport in Kentucky keeps Ohio time rather than Kentucky time.
Trivial? Of course. Annoying? Most definitely. A usurpation of undelegated power? Unquestionably.
Regulating the type of guns? "We are not taking your guns away. We are just making it harder to get decent defense weapons. Consider the ban on Saturday Night Specials in 1968 that banned cheap guns so the poor victims lost the means of defense. After all Congressmen with their armed bodyguards can not find the slightest reason for people to defend themselves. If they are in danger they can always hire bodyguards.
But do not forget, they are not banning the means of self defense, they are only regulating it. They are only requiring that the victim have less effective weapons than attackers, plural. It is only regulation. Self defense is not being banned yet.
Were this to be a larger article I could provide dozens more examples of regulation vice banning where there is no apparent difference save in the legal wording. We are back to walks, talks, and waddles like a duck it is still a ban and in no way a "regulation" loophole.
When we face regulation that is the same as a ban it is unconstitutional as there is no difference. And as such it is a usurpation of a power not delegated. Those who enforce it have no right to do so and are violating their oath of office.
Resistance to such usurped authority is in consonance with an oath of office. Submitting to it is not.