A federal appeals court has ruled that the government must prove that people who use marijuana “pose a risk of future danger” if it wants to justify applying a law banning cannabis consumers from owning firearms.
In its opinion on Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit sided with a federal district court that dismissed an indictment against Jared Michael Harrison, who was charged in Oklahoma in 2022 after police discovered cannabis and a handgun in his vehicle during a traffic stop.
The case has now been remanded to that lower court, which determined that the current statute banning “unlawful” users of marijuana from possessing firearms, known as 922(g)(3), violates the Second Amendment of the Constitution.
The Justice Department appealed that ruling in 2023, sending it to the Tenth Circuit. That three-judge panel said they “agree with much of the district court’s analysis” of the legal considerations, including its challenge to the federal government’s claims that there is historically analogous precedent substantiating the firearm ban for cannabis consumers.
Part of DOJ’s argument was that the ban is historically consistent with prohibitions on gun ownership by people with mental illness. The appeals court said “the government cannot justify”
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