At present being briefed earlier than the U.S. Supreme Courtroom on the deserves is a take a look at of the federal statutory ban, with extreme felony penalties, for any marijuana “consumer” who possess a firearm or perhaps a single spherical of ammunition. 18 U.S.C. sec. 922(g)(3). The Supreme Courtroom’s docket web page is here. And here is the amicus brief I coauthored on behalf of the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation, FPC Motion Basis, and Independence Institute (the place I work). The lead creator was NRA’s litigation director Joseph Greenlee. As all the time in a Greenlee transient, the originalist authorized historical past is full and impeccable.
Under is the Abstract of Argument.
“To justify firearms prohibition for marijuana customers when they aren’t intoxicated, the federal government should show that the ban is per our nation’s historic custom of firearm regulation. That custom helps restrictions on using firearms whereas intoxicated, however it doesn’t help disarming people when they’re sober merely as a result of they generally use intoxicants.”
“All through American historical past, legislatures acknowledged that intoxication might quickly enhance the hazard of firearms misuse. However they didn’t reply by completely disarming folks primarily based on their standing as customers. As an alternative, historic intoxication legal guidelines regulated conduct: limiting the carrying, discharge, or buy of firearms solely whereas an individual was intoxicated and solely for so long as that situation lasted. The historic document thus displays a constant custom of slender, situational restrictions relatively than categorical disarmament.”
“Furthermore, as a result of the mix of intoxicants and firearms is an issue that has endured because the eighteenth century, the federal government should present a distinctly related historic regulation addressing it. Hemp and alcohol have been each widespread and well-known throughout the Founding Period. Hemp was extensively cultivated, broadly mentioned, and understood to have intoxicating properties, whereas alcohol abuse was pervasive and deeply troubling to the Founders themselves. Firearms and intoxicants routinely intersected—in militia service, social gatherings, celebrations, and army campaigns—making their mixture a well-known and longstanding societal drawback. The historic document exhibits that legislatures confronted these dangers by way of slender, conduct-based laws relatively than broad prohibitions on firearm possession.”
“Bereft of related help, the federal government elides the historic custom of ‘firearm regulation,’ and as a substitute affords strained analogies to civil-commitment legal guidelines for alcoholics who couldn’t handle their affairs and to vagrancy legal guidelines that detained folks in compelled labor for loafing, juggling, or carrying the garments of the alternative intercourse.
“The federal government additionally cites surety legal guidelines, however these legal guidelines undermine its case as a result of they required an individualized judicial discovering of dangerousness.”
“Apart from contradicting the particular American historic custom about regulating firearms and intoxicants, the prosecution of Hemani for marijuana use violates a broader rule: particular person disarmament should be primarily based on dangerousness. But the federal government has made no severe effort to determine a connection between marijuana use and dangerousness. Fairly than specializing in marijuana, it discusses medication within the summary and depends totally on violent incidents involving methamphetamine, heroin, tranquilizers, quaaludes, and PCP.”
Accordingly, the transient urges that part 922(g)(3) be held unconstitutional as utilized to Hemani. The federal government’s briefing makes all form of accusations and insinuations about him, however the one crime with which he has been charged is possessing firearms and in addition being a marijuana consumer.
