[LittleRedToyota]

Originally Posted by shooter357

I thought the original version was changed because it made criminals out of people that were passing by a school with guns in the vehicle which conflicted with the commerce laws.

it was changed because SCOTUS found it to be uconstitutional...that congress had overstepped its authority under the commerce clause.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun-Free_School_Zones_Act

It was subsequently declared to be an unconstitutional exercise of Congressional authority under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution by the United States Supreme Court, and was therefore voided. This case, United States v. Lopez (1995), was the first time in over half a century that the Supreme Court limited Congressional authority to legislate under the Commerce Clause.

congress did not substantively change the law though. they just added wording to try to get SCOTUS to rule differently if it got challenged again.

from http://www.gunowners.org/fs9611.htm

Isn't this the same as the law that was passed in 1990?

The new law is virtually word-for-word the same as the previous law. When the first disastrous "gun free zones" provision was passed in 1990, it was almost immediately challenged. The effective date was January 27, 1991. By the first months of 1992, the events triggering the Lopez case, which ultimately overturned the law in the Supreme Court, had transpired. Aggressive enforcement was held in abeyance while the constitutionality of this language wound its way through the courts.

also from the same page

Will this law pass constitutional muster?

Those who rely on the courts to save us from this vast expansion of federal gun laws by declaring the law unconstitutional are playing a very dangerous game. Federal courts have not generally been friends of the Second Amendment.

Furthermore, many analysts, including the REPUBLICAN leadership on the House Judiciary Committee, are predicting that the superficial changes made in the new act cure the constitutional defects that allowed the 1990 safe schools bill to be overturned by the courts in the Lopez decision.

Specifically, the new law requires that the gun "affects interstate and foreign commerce." This "affects commerce" language is so broad that, in one case, a farmer was held to have "affected commerce" by growing and wholly consuming his own crops, on the basis that commerce would be altered if every farmer did the same. Obviously, given this interpretation, there would be no human activity that did not "affect commerce," and the change would have absolutely no impact on the implementation of the unconstitutional 1990 law.

Does this superficial change alter the constitutionality of the unconstitutional 1990 version? Some members of the Second Amendment community believe it does not. Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee argue just as adamantly that it does.

The real answer is that no one knows. It is possible that a court will overturn this statute. BUT, if it does not, we will be stuck with one of the most repressive gun bans on the record books.

here is a link to a PDF that has the changes marked:

http://www.gunlaws.com/Gun_Free_School_Zones_Act.pdf