The Justice Department on Monday asked a federal court to dismiss a lawsuit aimed at overturning a policy banning medical marijuana patients from buying or owning guns.
The padding is based in part on the government’s position that it is “too dangerous to trust marijuana users to exercise good judgment” when it comes to firearms.
The Case Filed
In its allegations of dismissal, the DOJ also cites a shocking historical record of previous gun bans against groups such as Native Americans, Catholics, beggars, people who refuse to swear an oath of allegiance to the government, and people who drink and shoot. I have drawn similarities.
The current lawsuit, filed by Democratic Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Freed and several medical marijuana users, accuses the federal government of illegally depriving patients of their constitutional rights for a number of reasons. The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint in last month’s judgment of the U.S. Supreme Court over an unrelated gun rights lawsuit in New York.
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Government Justification
As expected by the plaintiffs, the Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss the case on Monday, the court-imposed deadline for reply. The government justified the dismissal application with an attached memorandum.
At the highest level, the Justice Department said gun rights are generally reserved for “law-abiding” people. Florida may have legalized medical marijuana, but the federal government says that as long as it’s banned, it doesn’t matter. And two of the plaintiffs who were denied firearm possession after admitting medical marijuana use on federal forms confessed to injuries.
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He said he could have done so, but neither the commissioner nor another defendant could say the same. The Justice Department memo also states that the government asserts that cannabis “is not currently sanctioned for medical use,” so in addition to outright rejecting the definition of medical marijuana, there are no precedents or historic firearms.
The department argues that federal law takes precedence over state law, but ignores many medical conditions in states like Florida where patients are eligible to use cannabis, but justifies a gun ban.
It also cites Florida law itself to make medical marijuana use “impair judgment, cognition, and physical coordination,” a state policy requiring physicians to inform patients. I am quoting. Of course, this also applies to many legal prescription drugs and alcohol, but the Department of Justice has focused on Florida’s disclosure rules, arguing that firearms cannabis users pose a unique public safety threat.
The memo also challenges the impact of recent Supreme Court rulings that have generally raised the bar for policies aimed at restricting gun rights. Broadly speaking, the ruling states that such restrictions must be consistent with the historical context of the 1791 first ratification of the Second Amendment.
