This edict came despite many states legalizing recreational use of cannabis and even court rulings to the contrary. The ATF marked Minnesota’s legalization of marijuana to declare its position.
“Regardless of the recent changes in Minnesota law related to marijuana, an individual who is a current user of marijuana is prohibited from shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing firearms or ammunition.”
Over 20 states have thrown out laws banning its usage, though it is still illegal at the federal level. And therein is the crux of the issue.
Jeff Reed is the Acting Special Agent in Charge of the ATF’s St. Paul field office. He declared that until the federal status of marijuana changes, people who have firearms should remember that it is against federal law to possess both a weapon and marijuana.
Reed noted that the reminder came as a public service as Minnesota law changed.
It was 2016 when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled unanimously in support of a gun prohibition for marijuana users. At that time, Senior District Judge Jed Rakoff called the blanket ban “reasonable” and justified it by declaring using the drug “raises the risk of irrational or unpredictable behavior with which gun use should not be associated.”
It is important to note that no one is advocating the use of marijuana simultaneously with handling guns. Of course, the same can be said for alcohol and any number of other substances that should not be mixed with guns, driving, etc.
Fast forward to 2023, and courts are headed in a distinctly different direction. A pair of recent rulings spotlight the movement towards not stripping Second Amendment rights away from marijuana users solely for that fact.
In February, U.S. District Judge Patrick Wyrick of Oklahoma City dismissed the indictment of a man charged last year with violating the federal ban. The judge cited 2022’s landmark Bruen decision by the Supreme Court that greatly expanded gun rights to where they have historically been.
With that decision in mind, Wyrick declared the federal law unconstitutional.
This was not a wild-eyed ruling by a fringe judge. Wyrick acknowledged that the government has an interest in barring dangerous people from possessing firearms. But he drew a line at simple marijuana use.
In ruling for defendant Jared Harrison, the judge noted that the government could not defend its assertion that his “mere status as a user of marijuana justifies stripping him of his fundamental right to possess a firearm.”
He further wrote that marijuana use is not a “violent, forceful, or threatening act” and that it is legal in Oklahoma for medicinal purposes. As Bruen relied heavily on the “history and tradition” of U.S. gun laws, Wyrick said merely partaking in marijuana does not align with that precedent.
Then, in April, a Texas federal judge agreed with Wyrick’s decision on federal laws banning gun possession by marijuana users. Kathleen Cardone serves on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. She likewise concluded that the federal ban on transferring weapons to an “unlawful user” of a “controlled substance” is unconstitutional.
Paola Connelly faced charges of illegal possession of firearms after El Paso officers located marijuana and guns in her home in December 2021. She was additionally charged with transferring guns to her husband, who was also a drug user.
Cardone rejected the administration’s stance that the federal ban was “relevantly similar” to the colonial prohibition on using or carrying firearms while intoxicated.
Instead, she compared it to a hypothetical situation where people were banned from driving cars because they get intoxicated on the weekend. This example, much like the federal ban, focuses on mere possession instead of usage of a vehicle or firearm.
No one wants intoxicated or impaired persons behind the wheel or in possession of a firearm. But Washington’s blanket ban on firearms for mere users of marijuana may be on borrowed time.
