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  83R6748 BPG-D
 
  By: Sanford H.C.R. No. 63
 
 
 
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
         WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the
  United States reads as follows: "The powers not delegated to the
  United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the
  States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people";
  and
         WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of
  federal power as being that specifically granted by the
  Constitution of the United States and no more; and
         WHEREAS, The Tenth Amendment assures that we, the people of
  the United States of America and each sovereign state in the Union
  of States, now have, and have always had, rights the federal
  government may not usurp; and
         WHEREAS, Section 4, Article IV, of the constitution says,
  "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a
  Republican Form of Government," and the Ninth Amendment states that
  "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not
  be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people";
  and
         WHEREAS, The United States Supreme Court has ruled in New
  York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144 (1992), and Printz v. United
  States, 521 U.S. 898 (1997), that Congress may not simply
  commandeer the legislative, executive, and regulatory processes of
  the states, and that to do so is a violation of the Tenth Amendment;
  and
         WHEREAS, One of our nation's founders and author of the
  Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, emphasized that the
  states are not "subordinate" to the national government, but rather
  the two are "coordinate departments of one simple and integral
  whole"; and
         WHEREAS, One of the authors of the Federalist Papers,
  Alexander Hamilton, expressed his hope that "the people will always
  take care to preserve the constitutional equilibrium between the
  general and the state governments" and that "this balance between
  the national and state governments forms a double security to the
  people"; and
         WHEREAS, The Second Amendment to the United States
  Constitution reserves to the people the right to keep and bear arms;
  and
         WHEREAS, Recently, the president announced a sweeping array
  of gun control measures that would infringe on the Second Amendment
  rights of citizens; members of Congress have also proposed
  draconian gun control legislation, including the restoration of a
  ban on "assault weapons," which is a term that remains undefined;
  and
         WHEREAS, Such encroachments by the federal government may
  result in a commandeering of the states' legislative, executive,
  and regulatory processes; they undermine the spirit of the
  federalist system created by our nation's founders and are in
  violation of the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United
  States; now, therefore, be it
         RESOLVED, That the 83rd Legislature of the State of Texas
  hereby assert its sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the
  Constitution of the United States and beseech the federal
  government to immediately cease and desist from the promulgation of
  mandates that infringe on the Second Amendment right to keep and
  bear arms or that are otherwise beyond the scope of its
  constitutionally delegated powers; and, be it further
         RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official
  copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, to
  the president of the Senate and the speaker of the House of
  Representatives of the United States Congress, and to all the
  members of the Texas delegation to Congress with the request that
  this resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record
  as a memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.