83R6748 BPG-D
	By: Sanford, Krause, Miller of Fort Bend,	H.C.R. No. 63
	Bonnen of Brazoria, Leach, et al.

	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.