Federal Court Upholds Banning Gun Sales To Marijuana Card Holders
I don’t know many cannabis smokers who like to exercise their 2nd amendment right, as most are already cognizant of the fact that they are in violation of federal law by the simple fact of them being cannabis smokers. Regardless, this assumption has not stopped Federal judges from unanimously placing a ban on the sale of guns to medical marijuana card holders in August of this year.
The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals applies to the nine Western states that fall under the court’s jurisdiction, including California, Washington and Oregon. It was through this ruling that the courts determined that denying the sales of guns to medical marijuana card holders does not violate their 2nd amendment rights.
The matter first came to light in 2011, when S. Rowan Wilson, a Nevada woman, attempted to purchase a firearm after recently obtaining a medical marijuana card.
The gun store from which Wilson attempted to purchase a firearm denied her request, citing the federal rule on the sale of firearms to illegal drug users.
The 9th Circuit court agreed that it’s reasonable for federal regulators to assume a medical marijuana card holder is more likely to use the drug (which we can all surmise is a fairly safe assumption).
In addition to the initial ruling, a ban on the sale of guns to marijuana and other drug users is reasonable because the use of such drugs “raises the risk of irrational or unpredictable behavior with which gun use should not be associated,” Senior District Judge Jed Rakoff said. To put this in laymen’s terms, people get high and do stupid shit with firearms.
The 9th Circuit also rejected other constitutional challenges to the ban that were raised by Wilson.
