The Ninth Circuit ruled in an unanimous decision that individuals with medical marijuana cards are banned from purchasing firearms.
This ruling stems from the Form 4473 the ATF requires gun buyers to fill out before gun purchases, and which asks them to declare whether they are “an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant.”
Via NBC News:
The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco came in a lawsuit filed by S. Rowan Wilson, a Nevada woman who said she tried to buy a firearm for self-defense in 2011 after having obtained a medical marijuana card. The gun store refused, citing the federal rule banning the sale of firearms to illegal drug users.
Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has told gun sellers they can assume that a person with a medical marijuana card uses the drug.
The 9th Circuit said in its 3-0 decision that Congress reasonably concluded that marijuana and other drug use “raises the risk of irrational or unpredictable behavior with which gun use should not be associated.”
Wilson’s attorney, Chaz Rainey, said there needs to be more consistency in applying the Second Amendment. He planned to appeal.
Read more here.
