The Justice Department is doubling down on its position that medical marijuana patients who possess firearms “endanger public safety,” “pose a greater risk of suicide” and are more likely to commit crimes “to fund their drug habit”—justifying, in the government’s eyes, a federal ban on gun ownership by cannabis consumers.
Following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month that upheld the constitutionality of governments setting certain gun restrictions in a case centered around domestic violence-related prohibitions, the justices remanded a pending cannabis and Second Amendment rights case back to the lower court for reconsideration.
Late last week, plaintiffs and DOJ submitted briefs in a separate case that responded to the potential implications of the high court’s latest decision for the federal statute barring gun ownership by cannabis consumers.
In the filings submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, DOJ urged the panel to affirm an initial district court ruling that deemed the cannabis and firearms ban to be constitutional, while appellants are requesting a reversal of the order.
This is the latest development in the two-year case, with a group of Florida medical cannabis patients arguing that their Second Amendment rights are being violated because they
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