# United States v. Lopez **Status: stub — expand.** **Decided April 26, 1995 · 5–4 · Rehnquist, C.J.** The first time in nearly sixty years the Court struck a federal statute as exceeding the [[Commerce Clause]]. The Gun-Free School Zones Act made it a federal crime to possess a firearm near a school. The Court held that possessing a gun in a school zone is not economic activity, the statute contained no jurisdictional element tying it to interstate commerce, and Congress had made no findings. Accepting the government's education-and-productivity chain of inferences, Rehnquist wrote, would leave "no limitation on federal power, even in areas such as criminal law enforcement or education where States historically have been sovereign." The opinion sorted the commerce power into **three categories**: channels of interstate commerce, instrumentalities and persons or things in it, and activities substantially affecting it — the framework courts still use. *United States v. Morrison* (2000) applied it to strike the Violence Against Women Act's civil remedy; [[Gonzales v. Raich]] (2005) marked its limit. ## See also - [[Wickard v. Filburn]] · [[Gonzales v. Raich]] · [[Federalism Powers Crosswalk]]