The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), along with a handful of partner organizations, have filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) urging the court to grant certiorari in a case challenging the federal ban on firearm possession by individuals who use marijuana.
The case, Harris v. United States, revolves around whether the law restricting marijuana users for purchasing or possession guns violates the Second Amendment-protected rights of those pot users. And plaintiffs are challenging the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling from earlier this year.
“Because of the prohibition found in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), if Americans choose to use marijuana or other cannabis products (that often are legal in their state), they must surrender their Second Amendment right before they do so—and not only when they are intoxicated,” the amicus brief stated. “They may not even own firearms if they regularly consume cannabis products. This does not square with the lengthy historical tradition of how alcohol and firearms have been regulated.”
Kostas Moros, SAF director of legal research and education, said the 3rd Circuit got it wrong in its earlier ruling.
“The Third Circuit’s ruling defies Bruen and Rahimi by upholding a lifetime disarmament of sober citizens who occasionally use a substance—marijuana—that is now legal to various extents in 40 states and socially accepted by a supermajority of Americans,” Moros said in a news release announcing the filing. “History shows that Founding-era laws addressed the danger of mixing alcohol and firearms by temporarily disarming the actively intoxicated, never by stripping gun rights from anyone who simply drank in moderation. The Third Circuit ignored this close historical analogue and instead relied on remote comparisons to laws disarming the ‘furiously mad.’ We urge the Court to intervene and restore the proper Bruen framework.”
While the Supreme Court has recently granted cert in another marijuana-related case, U.S. v. Hemani, that case involves harder drugs than marijuana and a number of other unusual facts. This latest SAF brief urges the Supreme Court to hear this case alongside it.
Alan M. Gottlieb, SAF founder and executive vice president, said the case is crucial to the freedom protected by the Second Amendment.
“This case is critical because it affects millions of law-abiding Americans who face losing their Second Amendment rights simply for using a substance legal in their state—often for medical reasons,” Gottlieb said. “SAF is also challenging a firearms purchase ban by medical marijuana card holders in Greene v. Bondi, and we feel it’s an important issue that warrants the Supreme Court’s intervention.”
SAF was joined in the amicus filing by the California Rifle & Pistol Association, Second Amendment Law Center, Operation Blazing Sword–Pink Pistols, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus and Minnesota Gun Owners Law Center.
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