In The

Supreme Court of the United States

PRINTZ

v.

UNITED STATES

Decided June 27, 1997


Justice O’Connor, Concurring

Summary:

Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that certain interim provisions of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act violated the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

CASE DETAILS
Topic: Federalism*Court vote: 5–4
Note: No other Justices joined this opinion.
Holding: The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act's interim provision commanding the 'chief law enforcement officer' (CLEO) of each local jurisdiction to conduct background checks, §922(s)(2), is unconstitutional.
Citation: 521 U.S. 898 Docket: 95–1478Audio: Listen to this case's oral arguments at Oyez

* As categorized by the Washington University Law Supreme Court Database

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Opinion

JUSTICE O'CONNOR, concurring.

Our precedent and our Nation's historical practices support the Court's holding today. The Brady Act violates the Tenth Amendment to the extent it forces States and local law enforcement officers to perform background checks on prospective handgun owners and to accept Brady Forms from firearms dealers. See ante, at 922. Our holding, of course, does not spell the end of the objectives of the Brady Act. States and chief law enforcement officers may voluntarily continue to participate in the federal program. Moreover, the directives to the States are merely interim provisions scheduled to terminate November 30, 1998. Note following 18 U. S. C. § 922. Congress is also free to amend the interim program to provide for its continuance on a contractual basis with the States if it wishes, as it does with a number of other federal programs. See, e. g., 23 U. S. C. § 402 (conditioning States' receipt of federal funds for highway safety program on compliance with federal requirements).

In addition, the Court appropriately refrains from deciding whether other purely ministerial reporting requirements imposed by Congress on state and local authorities pursuant to its Commerce Clause powers are similarly invalid. See, e. g., 42 U. S. C. § 5779(a) (requiring state and local law enforcement agencies to report cases of missing children to the Department of Justice). The provisions invalidated here, however, which directly compel state officials to administer a federal regulatory program, utterly fail to adhere to the design and structure of our constitutional scheme.

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