A federal court has tossed a firearms conviction against a man because it determined that the underlying alleged crime—possession of a gun while being a user of marijuana—is unconstitutional.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth District on Friday said the crux of the case is “whether the Second Amendment protects a habitual marijuana user from being permanently dispossessed of a firearm based on our Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”
The ruling comes as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs the constitutionality of the federal ban on gun ownership by people who use marijuana and other drugs. Numerous federal courts have issued rulings on the issue in recent years, but the legal challenge has yet to be settled.
The case of Kevin LaMarcus Mitchell is somewhat unique, in that the appeals court made an assessment about the cannabis and firearms question in the context of a ruling to invalidate a conviction for general unlawful gun possession.
What the court ultimately determined is that the federal statute § 922(g)(3) doesn’t meet the standards of Supreme Court precedent in the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, which held that gun laws restricting the Second Amendment must be
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