So, to be clear, if you bought a new car for $47,000–the current average price for a new car in the US–and the day after you’d paid and taken possession of the car all internal combustion vehicle ownership was banned, and it was a criminal offense to even possess that car, you’d argue that the gov’t had the right to seize your car. And that you had no rights to own that car. Is that more or less correct?
No, the government couldn’t seize the car, but you could be arrested for possessing it or driving it, depending how the law was written. Obviously it would be a very unpopular law, possibly less popular than prohibition. A more popular example would be like the law banning cocaine, and all those old Coca Cola products instantly became contraband, even if your store just spent $47,000 on new inventory. They could make your hypothetical more popular by allowing people to be grandfathered in, or by banning production years before banning possession.
Edit: color me not so sure. Apparently there was a Supreme Court decision in 2015 that makes this less clear. When I finished law school, only real property triggered the takings clause.
No, the government couldn’t seize the car, but you could be arrested for possessing it[…]
That seems like a fairly meaningless distinction, even for the law. Yes, I know that there’s dumb shit like that sprinkled throughout state and federal law, but still.
So, to be clear, if you bought a new car for $47,000–the current average price for a new car in the US–and the day after you’d paid and taken possession of the car all internal combustion vehicle ownership was banned, and it was a criminal offense to even possess that car, you’d argue that the gov’t had the right to seize your car. And that you had no rights to own that car. Is that more or less correct?
No, the government couldn’t seize the car, but you could be arrested for possessing it or driving it, depending how the law was written. Obviously it would be a very unpopular law, possibly less popular than prohibition. A more popular example would be like the law banning cocaine, and all those old Coca Cola products instantly became contraband, even if your store just spent $47,000 on new inventory. They could make your hypothetical more popular by allowing people to be grandfathered in, or by banning production years before banning possession.
Edit: color me not so sure. Apparently there was a Supreme Court decision in 2015 that makes this less clear. When I finished law school, only real property triggered the takings clause.
That seems like a fairly meaningless distinction, even for the law. Yes, I know that there’s dumb shit like that sprinkled throughout state and federal law, but still.