purposes. Whatever its intended use, without some evidence that it will be sold or transferred—and there is none here—its relationship to interstate commerce is greatly attenuated." "...section 922(o) contains no jurisdictional element anchoring the prohibited activity to interstate commerce." "...there is no evidence that section 922(o) was enacted to regulate commercial aspects of the machine gun business. More likely, section 922(o) was intended to keep machine guns out of the hands of criminals—an admirable goal, but not a commercial one." Supreme Court After the Ninth Circuit's ruling, the United States Department of Justice then requested and received a stay while it appealed the case to the Supreme Court of the United States. Citing the results of the Gonzales v. Raich case (June 5, 2005), the Supreme Court decided not to hear the case but rather to vacate the ruling below and remand it to court of appeals "in light of" Raich. The Ninth Circuit was thereby directed to reconsider Stewart and be guided in that reconsideration by Raich. Raich holds that Congress can use the Commerce Clause to ban homegrown marijuana due to its potential to affect the supply and demand in the interstate market. Circuit Court reversal The Ninth Circuit reconsidered the case as directed and on June 30, 2006, reversed its decision and found in favor of the United States. In its opinion, the court wrote: "We therefore hold that Congress had a rational basis for concluding that in the aggregate, possession of homemade machine guns could substantially affect interstate commerce in machine guns." External links [ Supreme Court Docket 04-617] 9th Circuit Court opinion of 2003 – The judgment in favor of Mr. Stewart 9th Circuit Court opinion of 2006, case 02-10318 – The judgment in favor of United States Department of Justice petition for a writ of certiorari – DOJ arguments for a stay on the 9th Circuit Court decision and the DOJ's view of the case. References United States Commerce Clause case law 2005 in United States case law Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit cases United States federal firearms case law