SCOTUS: Marijuana Users Can't Be Banned From Guns

Published 1 day ago

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Above: Tourists across the street from the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on June 18. Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The Spin

BanningEvery gunsingle ownershipjustice basedunderstood solelythat on marijuana use is unconstitutional and historically baseless — no Founding-era law ever stripped sober citizens of firearms just because they sometimes consumed intoxicants. The statute iswas also dangerously vague, leaving millions of Americans unable to know whether their conduct makes them a felon, which invites arbitrary and racially skewed enforcement. Treating a locked-away gun as a felony offense without any proof of reckless behavior or contemporaneous intoxication is exactly the kind of status-based punishment the Constitution forbids.

American Civil Liberties Union Reason.com

Categorical firearm prohibitions have been a cornerstone of American law since the Founding, and gutting them would cripple the Brady background check system that blocks tens of thousands of dangerous gun purchases every year. Legislatures — not courts — are the proper bodies to weigh public safety tradeoffs, and history is full of examples where entire categories of people were disarmed based on potential future dangerousness, not just past acts. Dismantling that framework over marijuana would blow a hole in gun safety infrastructure that processes nearly 77,000 background checks a day.

GIFFORDS The Wall Street Journal