When asked about a federal prohibition on firearm ownership for people who use cannabis, Republican presidential candidate and Florida Governor. Ron DeSantis believes that the restriction violates Second Amendment. He is trying to portray himself as an uncompromising defender for gun rights, than former president Donald Trump who is leading the Republican primary polls.
DeSantis said, “I don’t believe that’s constitutional to be honest,” a Harvard Law School graduate with a law degree. “If you are using a legal product I do not see how this can nullify constitutional rights.”
The comments were made at a New Hampshire political event, in response to Don Murphy’s question. Murphy had pointed out that “cancer sufferers and veterans who use marijuana with the approval of their doctors lose their Second Amendment right.”
DeSantis frames his statement as a hypothetical question, based on the assumption that marijuana is “a product legal”. While cannabis remains illegal, Schedule I controlled substances at the federal level, nearly half of states have legalized it for adults. This is the conflict that’s causing the current controversy over federal gun rights and marijuana legalization in states.
DeSantis, after saying that he believes the ban to be unconstitutional is then attacked Trump by saying that he was concerned about Trump “bargaining away Second Amendment Rights.”
He said that “this is an important vote in terms of nomination for the Second Amendment,” because Trump has been willing to do many things in his career which infringe on the Second Amendment.
DeSantis stated earlier this month, that if he were elected president, he would respect the decisions made by the states on marijuana legalization regardless of his personal opinion that the reform had a “negative effect.”
Nikki Fried was Florida’s former Agriculture Commissioner. She filed a lawsuit against the federal government, claiming that the ban on guns around marijuana use is unconstitutional. In November, her office appealed the district court’s decision against the lawsuit. However, the current commissioner, Wilton Simpson, has decided not to pursue the case.
In federal courts, as more states legalized marijuana the Department of Justice insisted that the ban on firearms was necessary. They argued at times that marijuana users who also possess firearms pose a unique threat, similar to allowing people with severe mental illnesses to own firearms. So far, the courts are divided on this issue.
The Biden administration claimed that cannabis consumers with guns pose a threat to society, in part because they’re a data-google-interstitial=”false” href=”https://www.marijuanamoment.net/bidens-justice department says marijuana consumers are unlikely to store their weapons properly in the latest defense of federal ban/” rel=”noopener” target=”_blank>/a>. The Biden administration claimed that cannabis consumers who own guns are a danger to society. This is because they are “unlikely to” store their weapons properly.
In a brief filed in the case, attorneys from the Justice Department argued that the firearm ban for cannabis consumers is justified by historical analogies to restrictions imposed on the mentally ill or habitually intoxicated during the period of ratification of the Second Amendment in 1791.
The federal government has claimed repeatedly that these analogues support limiting the gun rights of cannabis users. But a number of federal courts have ruled the marijuana-related prohibition unconstitutional. This has led DOJ to appeal several ongoing cases.
In October, the Justice Department made similar arguments during oral argument in a related but separate case before the U.S. Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit. This case is about the Second Amendment rights for medical cannabis patients in Florida.
The attorneys in both cases also touched upon a U.S. Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit ruling, Daniels v. United States from August that found that the ban prohibiting people who use cannabis from possessing firearms was unconstitutional. This is true even if the marijuana users consume it for non-medical purposes.
DOJ had informed the Eleventh Circuit Court that it believed the ruling to be “incorrectly determined,”, and the department’s lawyer reiterated the government’s view that “there are reasons to doubt the foundations” in the appeals court’s decision.
The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma ruled last summer that the prohibition on people using marijuana possessing firearms was unconstitutional. The judge stated that the federal government’s justification for maintaining the law was “concerning.”
In U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, a judge ruled in April that banning people who use marijuana from possessing firearms is unconstitutional–and it said the same legal principle also applies to the sale and transfer of guns.
ATF wrote to Arkansas officials in August to warn them that a recently passed law allowing medical cannabis patients to get concealed carry licenses, “creates unacceptable risks” and could compromise the state’s alternative firearm licensing policy, which was approved by the federal government.
issued a warning shortly after Minnesota’s Governor signed a bill legalizing cannabis into law in 2017. The agency reminded that those who use marijuana are prohibited from owning or purchasing guns and ammunition until the federal prohibition is lifted.
ATF will issue an advisory in 2020 that specifically targets Michigan and requires gun sellers conduct federal background checks for all unlicensed buyers. It said Michigan’s cannabis laws allowed “habitual marijuana consumers” and other disqualified persons to obtain firearms without a license.
A little-noticed FBI memo from 2019, which recently surfaced, shows that the federal government generally does not view it as a crime for medical cannabis caregivers or growers to own guns.
In the first half of the current two-year legislative session, Republican lawmakers filed two bills that focused on marijuana and gun policy.
Rep. Brian Mast, co-chairman of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus and a member of the House of Representatives, introduced legislation in May that would protect the Second Amendment right of marijuana users in states where the drug is legal. This bill would allow them to buy and possess firearms, which they are currently prohibited to have under federal law.
Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer (DNY) has promised to attach that legislation to the bipartisan marijuana banking bill, which advanced out of committee last September.
Mast is also co-sponsoring in this session a separate Bill from Rep. Alex Mooney (R-WV), which would allow medical marijuana patients to buy and possess firearms.
Booker said that while he believed the justice system had handled the prosecution of the president’s child effectively, there was still a “double standard” in the country which allowed Presidents and Members of Congress to admit past marijuana use with impunity but subjected thousands of people who were less fortunate to punitive laws .
The city of Jersey City in New Jersey is suing the state for to be able screen and fire officers who use marijuana. The lawsuit is in response to the state Attorney General’s revised policies for drug testing for law enforcement agencies which prevented police officers from being tested for cannabis use off duty, as required by the state’s legalization laws.
Nikki Haley says she will ‘go with the scientists’ on federal marijuana rescheduling. She claims that it ‘clearly’ doesn’t belong in same class as heroin
The post DeSantis on Federal Gun Ban for Marijuana Use: ‘I don’t think that’s constitutional, to be honest with you’ first appeared on Marijuana moment.
