It is a common error to suggest the misnamed "supremacy clause" of the U.S. Constitution places federal law above state law and all other law. This is completely false.
It is an attempted usurpation promoted by the federal government itself, with the "news" media, and too often digested by useful idiots (no offense intended). Article VI actually says, in pertinent part:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof, and all Treaties made, or which shall be made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; ..." (emphases added)
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The fact that it may have usurped power in areas where it has no jurisdiction provides no legitimacy or supremacy despite any actions it may have taken regarding education, energy, medicine, health care, housing and a litany of other areas. This has been repeatedly pointed out by the U.S. Supreme Court:
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 1803
"an act of the legislature repugnant to the constitution is void."
Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616 1886
"It is the duty of courts to be watchful for the constitutional rights of the citizen, and against any stealthy encroachments thereon."
Norton v. Shelby County, 118 U.S. 425 1886
"An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation as though it had never been passed."
Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 1928
"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." (Note: quoted from dissent.)
Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U.S. 105 1943
"A state may not impose a charge for the enjoyment of a right granted by the Federal Constitution." "a person cannot be compelled 'to purchase, through a license fee or a license tax, the privilege freely granted by the Constitution."
Staub v. Baxley, 355 U.S. 313 1958
"It is settled by a long line of recent decisions of this Court that an ordinance which, like this one, makes the peaceful enjoyment of freedoms which the Constitution guarantees contingent upon the uncontrolled will of an official--as by requiring a permit or license which may be granted or withheld in the discretion of such official-is an unconstitutional censorship or prior restraint upon the enjoyment of those freedoms."
Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham Alabama, 394 U.S. 147 1969
"And our decisions have made clear that a person faced with such an unconstitutional licensing law may ignore it and engage with impunity in the exercise of the right of free expression for which the law purports to require a license."
It's probably a good idea to keep in mind that the axiom described in these cases -- an unconstitutional law is void -- has an important corollary. Even an unconstitutional law is the law, and stays in place with full force and effect, until it is declared unconstitutional by a court of competent jurisdiction, or until removed by the legislature. People are arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned under unconstitutional laws all the time. Some get off later. That can be summed up with a piece of street wisdom: The law means what the officer with the gun in your ear says it means.
Alan Korwin, Gunlaws.com. June 24th 2013