Of course the bigger question is why cannabis users would want guns in the first place but as we are in the land of crazy gun ownership that one falls on deaf ears..
Marijuana Moment
In a recent filing with the U.S. Supreme Court, the Trump-led Department of Justice (DOJ) is doubling down on arguments made under former President Joe Biden that users of illegal drugs—including marijuana—”pose a clear danger of misusing firearms.”
That risk, DOJ contends, justifies the longstanding federal prohibition on gun ownership by drug consumers—known as Section 922(g)(3)—despite the Constitution’s broad Second Amendment protections.
In a petition for review by the high court, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argues that despite recent appeals court decisions calling the constitutionality of the firearms ban into question, the restriction is nevertheless lawful.
“Section 922(g)(3) complies with the Second Amendment,” the government’s June 2 filing in the case, U.S. v. Hemani, says. “That provision targets a category of persons who pose a clear danger of misusing firearms: habitual users of unlawful drugs.”
Some lower courts have said the government’s blanket ban on gun and ammunition possession infringes on the Second Amendment—at least as applied to certain individual cases—because there’s no historical justification for such a broad restriction on an entire category of people.
But in the appeal petition in Hemani, Trump’s solicitor general said the ban is necessary and narrowly tailored enough to survive the legal challenge.
The federal statute “bars their possession of firearms only temporarily and leaves it within their power to lift the restriction at any time; anyone who stops habitually using illegal drugs can resume possessing firearms.”
Notably, while the government mentions “habitual” users of illegal drugs 40 times in its filing, that word does not itself appear in 922(g)(3). The language of the statute prohibits anyone “who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from purchasing or possessing firearms or ammunition.
A reply brief from Hemani’s lawyers is due to the Supreme Court by July 21.
While DOJ is asking the high court to take up the Hemani case, at least two other, similar cases are waiting in the wings: U.S. v. Cooper and U.S. v. Baxter both of which also hinge on the constitutionality of 922(g)(3).
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