With the United States Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Lopez, the Court began its long effort to reverse the sixty-year trend toward increasing federal dominion over traditionally local activities. Surprising to many at the time of its decision, Lopez signaled the modern Court’s resistance to allowing Congress to exercise a general legislative power through the Commerce Clause, particularly in cases involving non-economic criminal activity.

Lopez involved the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 (GFSZA), which made it a federal crime to possess a firearm within one thousand feet of a school. The Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Rehnquist, held that Congress did not have the power to pass the law because it was not substantially related to interstate commerce. In so doing, the Court announced a new framework for deciding whether a particular statute is within Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause. Under this new framework, the Court will be extremely deferential to Congress in cases involving statutes that regulate some form of economic activity, but less so in evaluating regulations that involve non-economic activity. The Court found that the GFSZA involved non-economic activity, and struck down the law after determining that the regulated activity did not substantially affect interstate commerce.