Watch the Federalism Video and review the text to respond to the following questions below.  (You will need to search on the title of the clip, called “Gun Control & State Sovereignty.”  It is from Season 9, Episode 52.)

After completing the questions, you will be posting your responses as your initial discussion post. This initial post is due no later than Friday at 11:59pm.  Students may NOT edit initial posts once posted.  Discussion scores will be based on the original post. 

Your initial post should be a minimum of 8 lines in length and be written in sentences (rather than just listing the letter, or a short phrase).

Before Sunday 11:59pm, please respond to two other classmates’ initial posts (not follow-up posts) for Question #4 with meaningful responses that address the substance of their post. Each of these follow-up posts should be a minimum of 4 lines in length.

1) Federalism defines the sharing of power between the federal and state governments. Recently, lawmakers in some states have proposed legislation to make it illegal for state and local law enforcement officials to implement (or enforce) any gun control restrictions that might be passed into law at the national level.

Which of the following is NOT a section of the Constitution that addresses the balance of power between states and the federal government?

1. Supremacy clause (Article VI, Clause 2)
2. Tenth Amendment
3. Eleventh Amendment
4. Impeachment procedures (Article II, Section4)

2) Which states in the video had seen proposals to limit the application of federal gun restrictions? What is it about these states that might explain their interest in such legislation?

3) What does the Constitution say about instances in which state and federal laws are in conflict with one another? That is, how is such conflict resolved, and who wins?

4) Identify one policy that should be decided by the federal government and one policy that should be decided by the states.  Why, in each case, is that level of government most suited to decide such policy?  (Be sure to give one example of each and the rationale for each.)