Which case limited the reach of the Commerce Clause by holding that carrying a gun in a school zone is not an economic activity affecting interstate commerce?

• A. Wickard v. Filburn (1942)
• B. United States v. Morrison (2000)
• C. United States v. Lopez (1995)
• D. Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)

Answer: (C)

The fundamental idea is how far the Commerce Clause can reach when the regulated activity is not clearly economic in nature. United States v. Lopez is the case that directly limits that reach by holding that carrying a gun in a school zone is not an economic activity that substantially affects interstate commerce. The Court said Congress had crossed into federal power territory because the gun possession in a local, non-economic context doesn’t have the required substantial connection to interstate markets or economic activity. This decision marks a restraint after earlier cases that broadened the clause’s reach, like Wickard v. Filburn, which allowed regulation based on aggregate effects on interstate commerce, and even as Gibbons v. Ogden laid down broad authority for interstate commerce in general. Morrison also tightened limits in a different context, but Lopez is the one that explicitly ties the lack of an economic, interstate-commerce link to the ruling that Congress cannot regulate such local gun possession under the Commerce Clause.