Attention marijuana aficionados! Did the Supreme Court just make it legal for you to own guns?
That’s the question that many pot users are asking today after a recent Supreme Court ruling on a case around exactly this issue.
You may recall that this case was coming before the SCOTUS (you can catch up on that here), but now they’ve actually heard the case and issued their ruling.
Did the Supreme Court agree with me (non-lawyer that I am)? John Kruzel gives us the details:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday limited the application of a decades-old federal law that bars firearms possession by certain drug users, rejecting a position taken by President Donald Trump’s administration that had threatened the gun rights of millions of Americans who ​use marijuana and own firearms.
The justices, in a 9-0 ruling, upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss an illegal gun possession charge brought under the law at issue against Ali Hemani, an American-Pakistani ‌dual citizen and Texas resident who told authorities he was a regular marijuana user.
Conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who authored the ruling, wrote that the government had failed to show that its prosecution of Hemani complied with the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms.”
It seems that the court agreed with me. Good for them! (Maybe that will impress my wife…).
And why wouldn’t they agree with me? The Second Amendment doesn’t have limitations written into that Constitutional Amendment. It just says that Americans are not to be prevented by the government from owning and bearing arms.
Yes, even if they regularly use marijuana.
Now, two points about this ruling:
- This ruling does not necessarily give blanket immunity from federal prosecution for other marijuana users to own guns besides the guy in this lawsuit. Look into the details and check with a lawyer before you potentially break a law. You’ll be the one facing any consequences. And…
- Remember, even if a person who regularly uses marijuana can legally have a firearm, they are still responsible for what they do with that firearm… just like everyone else.
So, this is a small victory for the Second Amendment, which I’m always for, but it isn’t a blanket pass for everyone.
And I especially recommend that you know the law applying to your situation before you accidentally break the law.
