According to a federal court in Oklahoma, a federal statute that forbids marijuana users from owning weapons is unconstitutional because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision from the previous year that greatly increased gun rights, Reuters reported.
An indictment against a man charged in August with breaking that prohibition was dropped on Friday by U.S. District Judge Patrick Wyrick, an appointment of former Republican President Donald Trump in Oklahoma City, on the grounds that it violated his Second Amendment right to possess guns.
The government may be able to keep dangerous individuals from having access to firearms, but Wyrick claimed it could not claim that Jared Harrison’s “mere status as a marijuana user warrants [being] stripped of his fundamental right to carry a handgun].”
Using marijuana, he claimed, “is not in and of itself an aggressive, forceful, or threatening conduct,” and he mentioned Oklahoma as one of several states where it is lawful to purchase marijuana for medicinal purposes even if it is still illegal under federal law.
“The mere use of marijuana carries none of the characteristics that the Nation’s history and tradition of firearms regulation support,” Wyrick wrote.
According to Reuters, after the 6-3 conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court declared in June that the Second Amendment protects a person’s right to carry a pistol in public for self-defense, the court’s ruling in June was the most recent case in which a ban on guns was deemed unconstitutional.
By stating that limits must be “compatible with this nation’s historical heritage of weapon control,” the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen decision introduced a new standard for evaluating gun regulations.
A federal statute prohibiting those subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing weapons was declared illegal on Thursday by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, citing that ruling.
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