Judge: Banning guns for marijuana users unconstitutional

OKLAHOMA CITY — A federal decide in Oklahoma has dominated {that a} federal legislation prohibiting individuals who use marijuana from proudly owning firearms is unconstitutional, the most recent problem to firearms laws after the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority set new requirements for reviewing the nation’s gun legal guidelines.

Lawyers for Jared Michael Harrison had argued that their consumer’s Second Amendment proper to bear arms was being violated by a federal legislation that makes it unlawful for “unlawful users or addicts of controlled substances” to own firearms.

Harrison had been charged after being arrested by police in Lawton, Oklahoma, in May 2022 following a visitors cease. During a search of his automotive, police discovered a loaded revolver in addition to marijuana. Harrison advised police he had been on his approach to work at a medical marijuana dispensary, however that he didn’t have a state-issued medical-marijuana card.

His attorneys had argued the portion of federal firearms legislation centered on drug users or addicts was not in keeping with the nation’s historic custom of firearm regulation, echoing what the U.S. Supreme Court has dominated final yr in a case generally known as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. That case set new requirements for decoding the Second Amendment.

Federal prosecutors had argued that the portion of the legislation centered on drug users is “consistent with a longstanding historical tradition in America of disarming presumptively risky persons, namely, felons, the mentally ill, and the intoxicated.”

U.S. District Judge Patrick Wyrick in Oklahoma City agreed with Harrison’s attorneys, ruling on Friday that federal prosecutors’ arguments that Harrison’s standing as a marijuana consumer “justifies stripping him of his fundamental right to possess a firearm … is not a constitutionally permissible means of disarming Harrison.”

“But the mere use of marijuana carries none of the characteristics that the Nation’s history and tradition of firearms regulation supports,” mentioned Wyrick, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump. In his ruling, Wyrick highlighted that underneath Oklahoma legislation, marijuana might be purchased legally at greater than 2,000 retailer fronts within the state.

Attorneys for Harrison, in addition to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Oklahoma, which was prosecuting the case, didn’t instantly return emails in search of remark Sunday.

The ruling got here a day after a three-judge panel of the fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans on Thursday dominated that the federal government can’t cease individuals who have home violence restraining orders in opposition to them from proudly owning guns. The panel referenced the Bruen resolution in its ruling. Two of the three judges on the panel are Trump appointees.

The Justice Department has mentioned it would search additional evaluation of the appeals courtroom’s resolution.

In September, a federal decide in Midland, Texas, dominated {that a} firearms legislation that bans these underneath felony indictment from shopping for guns is unconstitutional. In that case, U.S. District Judge David Counts, additionally a Trump appointee, additionally echoed the Supreme Court’s language within the Bruen case, saying there was “little evidence” the ban associated to being underneath indictment “aligns with this Nation’s historical tradition.”