The top government attorney has asked the Supreme Court for additional time to decide whether or not to contest a February ruling by an appeals tribunal regarding federal restrictions on the ownership of guns by marijuana consumers. The latest case in the series of recent lawsuits involving constitutionality surrounding the gun restriction.
D. John Sauer’s new file, which was filed on behalf of the Solicitor General, concerns a matter in which Keshon David Baxter had been found with both a handgun and a bag containing marijuana. He was charged under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), which prohibits gun ownership by “unlawful” users of controlled substances.
Baxter asserted in district courts that this prohibition is itself unconstitutional. She argued both that the term “unlawful use” was vague enough in the statute that it could not be enforced and that government restrictions on gun ownership by drug users were incompatible with the Second Amendment.
The lower court rejected both arguments—a ruling Baxter appealed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals of the Eighth Circuit.
In a Feb. opinion, the Eighth Circuit upheld the part of the district’s court decision that denied Baxter’s claim of vagueness but overturned the lower court’s ruling regarding the constitutionality on the firearms prohibition. Judges wrote however that “there were not enough factual findings” in the records to allow this Court review Baxter’s Second Amendment claim as it was applied.
Eighth Circuit, nevertheless, wrote: “We reverse district court’s judgment on Baxter as it applied the Second Amendment and remand district court to further proceedings consistent this opinion.”
The Federal Government has until the 6th of May to decide if it wants to ask the Supreme Court for a review of the ruling by the appellate court. Sauer has filed a new request asking for an extension of 30 days on the original deadline.
In a three-page document, the request states: “The solicitor general has not decided whether to petition certiorari on this matter.” The three-page request states that “the Solicitor General has not yet determined whether to file a petition for writ of certiorari in this case.”
Sauer was appointed by President Donald Trump and officially assumed the role of solicitor general in early this month. He represented Trump before in the landmark case involving presidential immunity.
One risk to appealing the ruling is that if the Supreme Court does take the case, justices may in fact rule unfavorably to the government, possibly cementing that § 922(g)(3) is—in at least some cases—unconstitutional.
A number of federal courts in recent months have cast doubt on the legality of § 922(g)(3), finding generally that while the ban on gun ownership among drug users may not be entirely unconstitutional, there’s scant historical precedent for such a broad restriction of Second Amendment rights on an entire a category of people.
In Rhode Island earlier this year, a federal court judge ruled the ban unconstitutional when applied to two defendants. The government was unable to show that prohibition against marijuana-users owning guns was based on historical precedent.
An Eighth Circuit panel recently dismissed a sentence of three years in prison against a man convicted of possession of a weapon while actively using marijuana. Judges in that case ruled that government’s prohibition on gun ownership by drug users is justified only in certain circumstances—not always.
Nowhere in our history does it say that we can disarm ourselves simply by saying so [the defendant] “Belongs to a group of people — drug users — that Congress categorically declared dangerous,” the ruling stated.
In another case earlier this year, a Fifth Circuit panel ruled that the firearms ban was unconstitutional as applied to least one defendant. That ruling came on the heels of a string of other judicial decisions casting doubt on the legality of the ban.
A federal judge in El Paso, for instance, ruled late last year that the government’s ongoing ban on gun ownership by habitual marijuana users is unconstitutional in the case of a defendant who earlier pleaded guilty to the criminal charge. This court then allowed him to withdraw his guilty plea, and dismissed the charges.
Another panel of judges, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, heard oral arguments in November in the government’s appeal of a district court ruling that deemed the gun ban unconstitutional.
The panel debated whether or not the case was about a challenge of the ban as applied, rather than a challenge on its face. As in previous cases, the judges focused on whether or no that defendant had been under the influence while possessing a gun.
In a separate federal court case, Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers recently made arguments that the ongoing firearm restriction for cannabis users is “analogous to laws disarming the intoxicated” and other historical laws “disarming many disparate groups that the government believed presented a danger with firearms.”
That brief was the latest response to a case filed by a Pennsylvania prosecutor who’s suing the federal government over its ban on gun ownership by cannabis users. It came two weeks after lawyers for the official, Warren County District Attorney Robert Greene, asked the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania to allow the matter to proceed to trial.
In a number of the ongoing cases, DOJ has argued that the prohibition on gun ownership by marijuana users is also supported by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, U.S.The court ruled that the government can limit Second Amendment rights for people who have domestic violence restraining order.
DOJ has made such arguments, for example, in favor of the firearms ban in a case in a case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. A group of Florida medical marijuana patients argues that they have been denied their Second Amendment right because they can’t legally buy firearms while using cannabis for medicine.
The DOJ, under the leadership of President Joe Biden has continually argued that marijuana patients possessing firearms endanger the public’s safety and “pose greater risks for suicide.” They are also more likely to engage in criminal activity “to support their drug addiction.”
The Trump administration has not yet decided how it will handle the case. At a NRA conference in 2023, Trump suggested there might be a link between the use of “genetically engineered” marijuana and mass shootings. Trump listed several controversial and unproven causes of the mass shootings that plague the United States. He said he’d direct the Food and Drug Administration to look into them.
He said: “We need to examine whether psychiatric medications, genetically modified cannabis, and other narcotics are contributing to psychotic episodes” which lead to violence.
DOJ has claimed in multiple federal cases over the past several years that the statute banning cannabis consumers from owning or possessing guns is constitutional because it’s consistent with the nation’s history of disarming “dangerous” individuals.
The Justice Department, in 2023, told the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Third Circuit, that precedents “comfortably support” the ban. Cannabis consumers with guns pose a unique danger to society, the Biden administration claimed, in part because they’re “unlikely” to store their weapon properly.
Hunter Biden was convicted last year by a federal court of violating law when he bought and owned a gun, while also being an active crack cocaine consumer. Two Republican congressmen challenged the basis of that conviction, with one pointing out that there are “millions of marijuana users” who own guns but should not be prosecuted.
Medical marijuana patients, legislators, and advocacy organizations have all been confused by the situation. The National Rifle Association’s (NRA) lobbying arm said recently that the court rulings on the cannabis and guns issue have “led to a confusing regulatory landscape” that have impacted Americans’ Second Amendment rights.
Cannabis policy is not a priority for the group. They do not take a position on the issue. The group said that many of these individuals were law abiding and productive community members who wanted to exercise the right to own and carry arms.
Some states, however, have passed laws that either restrict gun rights or attempt to protect them in relation to marijuana. Recently, for example, a Pennsylvania lawmaker introduced a bill meant to remove state barriers to medical marijuana patients carrying firearms.
Colorado activists also attempted to qualify an initiative for November’s ballot that would have protected the Second Amendment rights of marijuana consumers in that state, but the campaign’s signature-gathering drive ultimately fell short.
As 2024 drew to a close, the ATF issued a warning to Kentucky residents that, if they choose to participate in the state’s medical marijuana program that’s set to launch imminently, they will be prohibited from buying or possessing firearms under federal law.
Officials said people with firearms who become cannabis patients in states that allow it are not “expected” to turn those guns over, but those who want to “follow federal law” and “not be in violation” of the law must “decide to divest” themselves of their firearms.
Since then, bipartisan state lawmakers have introduced legislation that would urge Kentucky’s representatives in Congress to amend federal law to clarify that users of medical marijuana may legally possess firearms, though no action has since been taken on that bill.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, (D), said that in January he supported efforts by the Kentucky legislature to encourage the state’s congressional delega-tion to demand federal reforms that protect the Second Amendment right of medical marijuana users. However, the Governor added that he would like to see an even greater change at the federal level.
Beshear told a press briefing that the best way to handle this issue was not to just focus on it, but change the marijuana schedule. We need to alter the marijuana policies of the federal government.
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