on August 11, 2022
The Biden administration wants to keep medical marijuana users from exercising their 2A rights.
On Monday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) urged a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the longstanding prohibition that keeps pot smokers from purchasing and possessing firearms.
To help make its case, DOJ pointed to various gun restrictions that provide, in its view, historical precedent for upholding the ban, as marjiuanamoment.net reported.
“Analogous statutes which purport to disarm persons considered a risk to society—whether felons or alcoholics—were known to the American legal tradition,” the memo states.
Denying 2A rights to pot smokers “is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” DOJ added. “Two related historical traditions are analogous: the tradition of excluding those who engage in criminal activity from the right to bear arms, and the tradition of disarming those whose status or behavior would make it dangerous for them to possess firearms.”
The suit was filed by Florida’s Democratic agriculture commissioner Nikki Fried.
“I’m suing the Biden administration because people’s rights are being limited,” the commissioner said back in April. “Medical marijuana is legal. Guns are legal. This is about people’s rights and their freedoms to responsibly have both.”
According to DISA.com, pot is only “fully illegal” in four states (Idaho, Wyoming, Kansas, and South Carolina).
However, at the federal level, unlawful users of controlled substances are still barred from possessing firearms and may face up to 10 years behind bars if found guilty.
Last year, three Republican lawmakers introduced the Gun Rights And Marijuana (GRAM) Act, which would have made it legal for citizens to both exercise their right to keep and bear arms and consume cannabis in states that have legalized weed for recreational and medicinal purposes.
But it appears that the GRAM Act did not clear the committee stage, stalling out in the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security.
Stay tuned for updates.
is the News Editor of GunsAmerica.
