\n<\/p>\n
In the ongoing battle over cannabis use and gun ownership, a Texas district judge recently ruled that smoking marijuana does not automatically negate a person\u2019s Second Amendment-protected right to keep and bear arms.<\/p>\n
One portion of the Gun Control Act of 1968 makes it illegal for anyone using marijuana or other banned narcotics to purchase or own a firearm. In fact, the form used by the National Instant Background Check (NICS) system specifically asks purchasers if they use marijuana or other illegal controlled substances. Courts have recently weighed in with rulings on both sides of the spectrum, some declaring the law unconstitutional with others upholding the law.<\/p>\n
According to a recent report at thereload.com<\/a>, on December 30, U.S. District Judge David Briones\u00a0of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas ruled in the case U.S. v. Gil that pot users are among \u201cthe people\u201d mentioned in the Second Amendment and other amendments to the Bill of Rights.<\/p>\n Consequently, the judge dismissed a criminal indictment against an El Paso man caught with multiple bags of marijuana and firearms in his home. The judge determined that the government couldn\u2019t prove the man was high at the time of his arrest, so his prosecution represented an unconstitutional application of the federal law that bans drug users from owning firearms.<\/p>\n
![<\/a><\/div>\nIn the ongoing battle over cannabis use and gun ownership, a Texas district judge recently ruled that smoking marijuana does not automatically negate a person\u2019s Second Amendment-protected right to keep and bear arms.<\/p>\nOne portion of the Gun Control Act of 1968 makes it illegal for anyone using marijuana or other banned narcotics to purchase or own a firearm. In fact, the form used by the National Instant Background Check (NICS) system specifically asks purchasers if they use marijuana or other illegal controlled substances. Courts have recently weighed in with rulings on both sides of the spectrum, some declaring the law unconstitutional with others upholding the law.<\/p>\nAccording to a recent report at thereload.com<\/a>, on December 30, U.S. District Judge David Briones\u00a0of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas ruled in the case U.S. v. Gil that pot users are among \u201cthe people\u201d mentioned in the Second Amendment and other amendments to the Bill of Rights.<\/p>\nConsequently, the judge dismissed a criminal indictment against an El Paso man caught with multiple bags of marijuana and firearms in his home. The judge determined that the government couldn\u2019t prove the man was high at the time of his arrest, so his prosecution represented an unconstitutional application of the federal law that bans drug users from owning firearms.<\/p>\n\u201cThe coverage of the Second Amendment is broad at this stage of the analysis and the language of the Second Amendment is clear on this point,\u201d Judge Briones wrote in the ruling<\/a>. \u201cThe Bill of Rights uses the phrase \u2018the people\u2019 five times. In each place, it refers to all members of our political community, not a special group of upright citizens.\u201d<\/p>\nAccording to court documents, officers arrested Adrian Gil in 2021 after being called to his house over a fight involving a firearm. There, they discovered at least two large vacuum-sealed bags of marijuana and multiple guns.<\/p>\nThe arresting officers said Gil admitted to being a daily user of marijuana since the age of 14 and acknowledged that he knew marijuana users could not legally own firearms. He was subsequently indicted, pled guilty and was sentenced to 35 months in prison before he moved to appeal his charges on constitutional grounds.<\/p>\nUsing the precedent set in the Bruen<\/em> decision for determining Second Amendment cases, Judge Brionne first looked at whether the plain text of the amendment covered Gil\u2019s conduct. It then analyzed the second Bruen<\/em> standard\u2014whether there is a historical tradition of such a law from the founding period.<\/p>\nUltimately, the judge determined that Gil\u2019s conduct was protected, and the government could not provide evidence of such a historical standard.<\/p>\n\u201cWhile the Government goes to great lengths to disclose that Defendant \u2018admitted being a daily user of marihuana since age 14\u2032 and that Defendant \u2018just like[d] good weed,\u2019 it does nothing in the way of proving that Defendant was intoxicated by marijuana at the time of this incident, or at the time he was arrested,\u201d Briones concluded. \u201cIn line with the Fifth Circuit\u2019s reasoning in\u00a0Connelly<\/em>, this Court agrees that \u2018based on habitual or occasional drug use, \u00a7 922(g)(3) imposes a far greater burden on [Defendant\u2019s] Second Amendment rights than our history and tradition of firearms regulation can support.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\nSource link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the ongoing battle over cannabis use and gun ownership, a Texas district judge recently ruled that smoking marijuana does not automatically negate a person\u2019s Second Amendment-protected right to keep and bear arms. One portion of the Gun Control Act of 1968 makes it illegal for anyone using marijuana or other banned narcotics to purchase […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4415","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reviews"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunsandpride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunsandpride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunsandpride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunsandpride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunsandpride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gunsandpride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunsandpride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gunsandpride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunsandpride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gunsandpride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/cdn0.thetruthaboutguns.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/marijuana_gun_law.jpg\"){kind=link}