Judge Patrick Wyrick ruled in favor of Jared Michael Harrison, who was arrested after a traffic stop in Lawton, Oklahoma, in which police found a loaded revolver as well as marijuana in his vehicle.
At the same time, the DOJ asked the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold a 2022 decision by a federal judge in Florida. In that case, Allen Winsor dismissed a legal challenge to the gun ban applied to state-authorized medical marijuana recipients.
The DOJ in both cases is relying on faulty reasoning and very shaky legal grounds. Its recently filed appeal brief insists the law is “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” This is the standard established by the U.S. Supreme Court in last year’s landmark New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen ruling.
The federal government is relying on wholly justifiable laws enacted in centuries past that ban intoxicated persons from carrying or firing weapons. These statutes are sensible, and no one argues with their validity.
However, the fact that a person consumes alcohol does not in any way invalidate their Second Amendment rights if they are not drinking or intoxicated while in possession of a weapon.
At least the DOJ dropped its former defense of laws from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries that Judge Wyrick termed “ignominious historical restrictions.” These statutes were on the books to disarm slaves, Catholics, loyalists, and Native Americans. Hardly the precedent the federal government should be trotting out in court.
But attorneys insisted that these prior legal actions prove the government has within its power the ability to infringe on the Second Amendment rights of any persons or groups they considered “untrustworthy.”
That’s a rather ominous legal position.
The DOJ shifted that stand and now asserts that “the people” who enjoy Second Amendment protections are only “law-abiding, responsible citizens.” This category, the government declared, does not include cannabis users or anyone breaking the law, regardless of the level of offense.
This directly contradicts the previous position of President Joe Biden. Last October, the chief executive announced that he was “pardoning all prior federal offenses of simple marijuana possession.”
As he said, “There are thousands of people who were previously convicted of simple possession who may be denied employment, housing, or educational opportunities as a result. My pardon will remove this burden.”
Does this statement indicate the White House truly believes that marijuana consumption is an overarching evil that eradicates the constitutional rights of the user? Hardly.
But the Justice Department is still arguing that marijuana users who possess firearms in accordance with their Second Amendment rights should face up to 15 years in prison.
Interestingly, the DOJ also cited a 1946 history which recorded that at the nation’s founding, people believed to have mental diseases were often treated as though they had no “rights or privileges.” The agency even quoted a 2009 law review article that recalled previous times when justices of the peace could lock up “lunatics” who should not be permitted to travel abroad.
These flimsy arguments are far from solid ground to base federal appeals upon. The president with the stroke of his pen wiped away marijuana convictions at the federal level, and the perspective of the White House on this topic was made clear.
Again, Bruen set the standard of “historical tradition” concerning firearms regulations. The DOJ should produce better examples from the nation’s rich legal history to justify denial of Second Amendment rights than what they’ve shown thus far.
