The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is accepting public comments on a proposed rule that would provide guidance around the government’s restoration of Second Amendment gun rights for people who’ve been disarmed under federal law. But the department says certain applicants—including users of marijuana—”would be presumptively ineligible for relief and therefore denied relief absent extraordinary circumstances” because they appear to have “a lack of respect for the law and potential dangerousness.”
The DOJ filing, signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi and published last week, lists cannabis consumers and other “unlawful users of controlled substances” as among a number of categories of applicants who would presumably not qualify for relief under the proposed rule.
Under a federal law known as Section 922(g)(3), unlawful drug users—including of state-legal marijuana—are prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms or ammunition. But in recent months, a flurry of appeals court decisions have questioned the blanket ban’s legality, for example ruling that the restriction is constitutional only in certain circumstances.
DOJ’s filing doubles down on the government’s position in multiple court cases that marijuana users have no Second Amendment rights because the drug inherently makes people dangerous.
“Persons currently subject to the prohibitions in 922…(g)(3) (unlawful users of controlled substances)…would presumptively be denied relief because, having an adjudicated status that indicates a lack of respect for the law and potential dangerousness, they are unlikely to meet the statutory criteria,” it says
At the same time, the proposed rule also says the attorney general, in considering applicants’ requests to have their gun rights restored, “would not be bound by the artificial limits of the categorical approach,” noting that officials’ “decision whether to grant relief will be based on all the relevant circumstances, rather than a blindered approach that looks only at the facts that led to the applicant’s federal firearm disability.”
The rule doesn’t mean that people with past convictions around drug use would necessarily be denied relief, though it does suggest applications from current unlawful drug users would be rejected.
A different portion of the federal statute, 922(g)(1), prohibits gun ownership by anyone “who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.” Someone with a past felony conviction for cannabis possession might be eligible to have their rights restored under the proposed rule, but not if they’re currently prohibited under 922(g)(3) as a current consumer.
Someone with a past drug use conviction who no longer uses drugs, however, might be able to have their rights restored, as the proposed rule states that “such persons can ordinarily take themselves out of the prohibited category by discontinuing their unlawful conduct.”
Notably under the proposed rule, applications for relief would be reported to the “chief law enforcement officer in the locality where the individual lives.” Local law enforcement could also serve as “a conduit for other individuals to submit relevant information about the applicant.”
Public feedback on proposal will be accepted for 90 days, ending on October 20. Comments can be filed through the DOJ posting on the Federal Register.
A number of federal courts in recent months have cast doubt on the legality of § 922(g)(3), finding generally that while the ban on gun ownership among drug users may not be entirely unconstitutional, there’s scant historical precedent for such a broad restriction of Second Amendment rights on an entire a category of people.
Last week, for example, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated a defendant’s conviction under 922(g)(3) and remanded the case back to a lower court for a possible retrial. That came after a previous Eighth Circuit opinion in February said the prohibition on gun ownership by drug users is justified only in certain circumstances—not always.
Notably, the new Eighth Circuit opinion appears to differ from a recent Third Circuit ruling in that the new decision says that not every application of 922(g)(3) “require[s] an individualized factual determination,” explaining that such determinations wouldn’t be necessary if the government could demonstrate that a particular drug made an entire class of users dangerous.
By contrast, the Third Circuit earlier this month said in a published opinion that district courts must make “individualized judgments” to determine whether 922(g)(3) is constitutional as applied to particular defendants.
The appeals panel ruled that while a person “need not have harmed someone, threatened harm, or otherwise acted dangerously to justify his disarmament,” the history of gun laws in the country requires that “district courts must make individualized judgments and conclude that disarming a drug user is needed to address a risk that he would pose a physical danger to others.”
Judges in that case noted that historical restrictions on gun ownership under “drunkenness and lunacy laws” in the U.S. “were still always based on an ‘individualized assessment’ rather than a categorical judgment.”
As a recent report from the Congressional Research Service explained the current legal landscape, a growing number of federal courts are now “finding constitutional problems in the application of at least some parts” of the firearms prohibition.
The matter could soon be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court. In a recent petition for review by justices, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that despite recent appeals court decisions calling the constitutionality of the firearms ban into question, the restriction is nevertheless lawful.
“Section 922(g)(3) complies with the Second Amendment,” the government’s filing in that case, U.S. v. Hemani, maintains. “That provision targets a category of persons who pose a clear danger of misusing firearms: habitual users of unlawful drugs.”
The federal statute “bars their possession of firearms only temporarily,” the government petition says, “and leaves it within their power to lift the restriction at any time; anyone who stops habitually using illegal drugs can resume possessing firearms.”
Notably, while the government mentioned “habitual” users of illegal drugs 40 times in its Supreme Court filing, the word does not itself appear in 922(g)(3). The language of the statute prohibits anyone “who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from purchasing or possessing firearms or ammunition.
While DOJ is asking the high court to take up the Hemani case, at least two other, similar cases are waiting in the wings: U.S. v. Cooper and U.S. v. Baxter both of which also hinge on the constitutionality of 922(g)(3).
In Cooper, an Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel dismissed a three-year prison sentence against a person convicted for possession of a firearm while being an active user of marijuana. Judges in that case ruled that government’s prohibition on gun ownership by drug users is justified only in certain circumstances—not always.
“Nothing in our tradition allows disarmament simply because [the defendant] belongs to a category of people, drug users, that Congress has categorically deemed dangerous,” their ruling said.
The justices are set to discuss the case in a private meeting in September.
In Baxter, the Eighth Circuit ruled 922(g)(3) unconstitutional as applied to the facts in the case.
Judges in that case wrote that there were insufficient factual findings in the record “for this Court to review Baxter’s as-applied Second Amendment challenge.” Nevertheless, the they wrote, “We reverse the district court’s ruling on Baxter’s as-applied Second Amendment challenge and remand to the district court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.”
In recent weeks, the government has sought further time from the court to decide whether to seek an appeal in the other cases. And when DOJ filed its appeal in Cooper, it further asked the court to slow walk the case, requesting justices “hold the petition for a writ of certiorari pending the disposition of the petition in United States v. Hemani…and should then dispose of this petition as appropriate.”
One reason DOJ could be focused on the high court taking up Hemani in particular is that the defendant is not only a cannabis user but also a user of cocaine who’s sold drugs in the past, perhaps reasoning that he is a less sympathetic face of drug consumers’ gun rights. Defendants in the other cases were merely found in possession of both a firearm and marijuana.
If the Supreme Court takes up Hemani and declares 922(g)(3) constitutional, such a ruling could could mean government wins in the remaining cases.
One risk to the government appealing the lower court rulings are that if the Supreme Court does take the case, justices may in fact rule unfavorably to the government, possibly cementing that § 922(g)(3) is—in at least some cases—unconstitutional.
Earlier this year, a federal judge in Rhode Island ruled that the ban was unconstitutional as applied to two defendants, writing that the government failed to establish that the “sweeping” prohibition against gun ownership by marijuana users was grounded in historical precedent.
The Fifth Circuit’s Daniels ruling—in a three-judge panel ruled that the firearms ban was unconstitutional as applied—came on the heels of a string of other judicial decisions casting doubt on the legality of the ban.
A federal judge in El Paso, for instance, ruled late last year that the government’s ongoing ban on gun ownership by habitual marijuana users is unconstitutional in the case of a defendant who earlier pleaded guilty to the criminal charge. The court allowed the man to withdraw the plea and ordered that the indictment against him be dismissed.
Another panel of judges, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, heard oral arguments in November in the government’s appeal of a district court ruling that deemed the gun ban unconstitutional.
In a number of the ongoing cases, DOJ has argued that the prohibition on gun ownership by marijuana users is also supported by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, U.S. v. Rahimi, that upheld the government’s ability to limit the Second Amendment rights of people with domestic violence restraining orders.
DOJ has made such arguments, for example, in favor of the firearms ban in a case in a case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. In that matter, a group of Florida medical cannabis patients contends that their Second Amendment rights are being violated because they cannot lawfully buy firearms so long as they are using cannabis as medicine, despite acting in compliance with state law.
DOJ under President Joe Biden consistently argued that medical marijuana patients who possess firearms “endanger public safety,” “pose a greater risk of suicide” and are more likely to commit crimes “to fund their drug habit.”
It remains unclear how the Trump administration will approach the cases. At a NRA conference in 2023, Trump suggested there might be a link between the use of “genetically engineered” marijuana and mass shootings. He listed a number of controversial and unproven factors that he said at the time he would direct the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to investigate as possibly causing the ongoing scourge of mass shooting afflicting the country.
“We have to look at whether common psychiatric drugs, as well as genetically engineered cannabis and other narcotics, are causing psychotic breaks” that lead to gun violence, he said.
DOJ has claimed in multiple federal cases over the past several years that the statute banning cannabis consumers from owning or possessing guns is constitutional because it’s consistent with the nation’s history of disarming “dangerous” individuals.
In 2023, for example, the Justice Department told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit that historical precedent “comfortably” supports the restriction. Cannabis consumers with guns pose a unique danger to society, the Biden administration claimed, in part because they’re “unlikely” to store their weapon properly.
Last year, Biden’s son Hunter was convicted by a federal jury of violating statute by buying and possessing a gun while an active user of crack cocaine. Two Republican congressmen challenged the basis of that conviction, with one pointing out that there are “millions of marijuana users” who own guns but should not be prosecuted.
The situation has caused confusion among medical marijuana patients, state lawmakers and advocacy groups, among others. The National Rifle Association’s (NRA) lobbying arm said recently that the court rulings on the cannabis and guns issue have “led to a confusing regulatory landscape” that have impacted Americans’ Second Amendment rights.
“Marijuana use is no longer limited to the domain of indigenous religious customs or youth-oriented counterculture and now includes a wide variety of people who use it for medicinal or recreational reasons,” said the advocacy group, which does not have an official stance on cannabis policy generally. “Many of these individuals are otherwise law-abiding and productive members of their communities and want to exercise their right to keep and bear arms.”
Meanwhile, some states have passed their own laws either further restricting or attempting to preserve gun rights as they relate to marijuana. Recently a Pennsylvania lawmaker introduced a bill meant to remove state barriers to medical marijuana patients carrying firearms.
Colorado activists also attempted to qualify an initiative for November’s ballot that would have protected the Second Amendment rights of marijuana consumers in that state, but the campaign’s signature-gathering drive ultimately fell short.
As 2024 drew to a close, the ATF issued a warning to Kentucky residents that, if they choose to participate in the state’s medical marijuana program that’s set to launch imminently, they will be prohibited from buying or possessing firearms under federal law.
The official said that while people who already own firearms aren’t “expected to” turn them over if they become state-legal cannabis patients, those who “wish to follow federal law and not be in violation of it” must “make the decision to divest themselves of those firearms.”
Since then, bipartisan state lawmakers have introduced legislation that would urge Kentucky’s representatives in Congress to amend federal law to clarify that users of medical marijuana may legally possess firearms, though no action has since been taken on that bill.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said in January that he supported the legislature’s effort to urge the state’s congressional delegation to call for federal reforms to protect the Second Amendment rights of medical marijuana patients, but the governor added that he’d like to see even more sweeping change on the federal level.
“I think the right way to deal with that is not just to focus on that issue, but to change the schedule of marijuana,” Beshear said at a press conference. “What we need to change is the overall marijuana policy by the federal government.”
