The previous poster is right that the commerce clause (amongst others) have been twisted incomprehsnibly and while there’s a benefit, it’s begging to be overturned (and in a ‘realist’ sense, they should be). The answer then is for an amendment to provide the (expected) additional powers to the federal government.
And then we end up in the same situation where there's some new thing that should probably be regulated at the federal level but can't be since it's not explicitly listed in the constitution.
Imagine one day we invent portable teleporters. They would immediately be used for crime once they are available on the market although there would certainly be plenty of legal uses. That sounds like something the federal government should regulate, yes? You simply can't leave that up to the states because everyone is going to have a different standard for who can own one such that all you would need to do is travel to the least regulated state, buy a teleporter, and teleport back home. Having 50 different laws saying who can and can't own one would simply not be feasible based on how easy people can travel across the country. The federal government would need to establish regulations but only if the constitution says they can. Congress in 2024 would not have any notion that those could exist and would likely not explicitly give the federal government the power to regular them.
That’s by design. It’s a feature of US constitutional history, not a bug. You might not like the feature, but it was hotly debated in the 1790s and state rights were agreed upon. Abuse the constitution and we’ll imperil ourselves in other ways
>And then we end up in the same situation where there's some new thing that should probably be regulated at the federal level but can't be since it's not explicitly listed in the constitution.
Which is sort of the point of the structure of the US government. A government of a United collection of States, whose power is derived not from holy writ or mandate but from the people of those states granting powers to that government. If they don't grant the power, the government can't do it.
>You simply can't leave that up to the states because everyone is going to have a different standard for who can own one such that all you would need to do is travel to the least regulated state, buy a teleporter, and teleport back home. Having 50 different laws saying who can and can't own one would simply not be feasible based on how easy people can travel across the country.
And yet we do this all the time. Cars and their ownership are regulated on a per-state level, marijuana (ironically because the federal government has overstepped too far and the states and their people fought back) is legal or not in various forms on a per state level (and this as I note, despite being federally illegal). Guns, knives and indeed pepper spray are similarly regulated on a state by state basis. As are radar detectors. So much of people's day to day lives are regulated at the state levels and it works plenty fine most of the time. This need for everything to be uniform across the country is tempting, but like all things in life is full of trade offs. One shouldn't have to cast their memory too far back in time to imagine what it might be like for a federal administration run amok to have absolute authority over too many things.