The Weekly Standard looks at Rep. Chris Stewart’s proposed Regulatory Agency Demilitarization Act, which would remedy the problem of overzealous and violent federal enforcement.
Writes Mark Hemingway:
Stewart’s bill is a sensible way to begin to limit what seems to be too much regulatory enforcement at gunpoint. Surely the growing ranks of armed federal agents are one of the least defensible aspects of our runaway administrative state. When the Founders wrote the Second Amendment, they considered all Americans as potential members of the militia largely as a response to the fact that the crown had empowered special militias who often served their own aims rather than the public interest. It should not be surprising that when federal agencies have largely unchecked power to impose their will with their own little militias, it leads to abuse. It’s an abuse that shouldn’t be hard for Congress to stop.
