Federal Court Strikes Down Gun Ban For Marijuana Users

dwkl · February 7, 2023

A Federal Court Strikes Down Gun Ban For those People that Use Marijuana, Calling Government’s Justification ‘Concerning’.

The federal government’s justification for upholding the law is “concerning,” according to a federal judge, who ruled that the ban on marijuana users owning firearms is unconstitutional.

A man was charged in Oklahoma in 2022 after police found marijuana and a handgun in his car while he was driving, and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma dismissed the indictment on Friday. Judge Patrick Wyrick concurred with the attorneys that the Second Amendment of the Constitution is violated by the law that forbids “unlawful” cannabis users from owning firearms.

This ruling comes as the ban is still being contested in a separate federal court by several medical cannabis patients and former Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried (D).

The Trump-appointed judge in this case heavily relied on an interpretation of a recent Supreme Court decision in which the justices generally set higher standards for policies that seek to restrict gun rights.

According to the ruling, any such limitations must be in line with the Second Amendment’s original ratification in 1791.

The judge said in his decision on Friday that the historical analogies the Justice Department relied on to support the ban, including allusions to outdated case law prohibiting Catholics, allies, slaves and Indians from owning weapons, “misses the mark” and “cannot provide the basis for a historical analogue.”

The government’s position that marijuana users who use it illegally are “both unvirtuous and dangerous” was also addressed. A user of marijuana does not automatically fall into that category, according to Wyrick, “because the mere act of using marijuana do not involve violent, forceful, or threatening conduct.”

Similar arguments have been made by the government in the Florida-based case, in which medical cannabis patients are actively contesting a federal district court’s decision that dismissed their DOJ lawsuit in November.

Because the state’s cannabis laws had made it possible for “habitual marijuana users” and other disqualified people to obtain firearms illegally, the ATF issued an advisory in 2020 that specifically targeted Michigan and mandated that gun sellers conduct federal background checks on all unlicensed gun buyers.

The Department of Justice will likely appeal Wyrick’s ruling to a higher federal court.

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