1-08-2025 7:07pm

Federal Appeals Court Reaffirms Gun Ownership Rights for Marijuana Users

Chris Edwards Editor

Marijuana and gun ownership laws continue to cause confusion among law enforcement as more states legalize marijuana use. In its latest ruling concerning cannabis and guns by the US Federal Courts system the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said it remains "unconvinced by the Department of Justice’s position that a man, Patrick Daniels, was appropriately convicted under the statute § 922(g)(3) after law enforcement officials discovered trace amounts of cannabis and firearms during a routine traffic stop in 2022."

The years-long case began in a district court, where Daniels was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison for violating a federal statute that says people cannot own or possess firearms if they’re an unlawful user of a controlled substance. Upon appeal, the Fifth Circuit overturned that conviction, challenging the administration’s prosecution based on separate U.S. Supreme Court precedent that holds laws restricting an individual’s Second Amendment right must have historical analogues.

U.S. v. Daniels then made it to the Supreme Court, where justices ultimately declined to make a final ruling and remanded the case back to the Fifth Circuit for further review in light of a separate, adjacently relevant case on gun ownership by people who’ve committed domestic violence.

The 5th Circuit overturned Daniels' conviction in August 2023, deeming it inconsistent with the Bruen test. Last year, the Supreme Court vacated that decision and instructed the 5th Circuit to reconsider the case in light of United States v. Rahimi, a June 2024 decision that upheld a prosecution under 18 USC 922(g)(8), which bans gun possession by anyone subject to a domestic violence restraining order.

Two months after Rahimi, the 5th Circuit rejected a Section 922(g)(3) charge against Paola Connelly, a cannabis consumer who was arrested when El Paso police discovered that she owned firearms. The court said it was unconstitutional to prosecute Connelly "based solely on her 'habitual or occasional drug use.'" That decision in United States v. Connelly, the 5th Circuit said on Monday, dictates the outcome in United States v. Daniels.

Last October, the Fifth Circuit took the case back up and heard oral arguments, where the government continued to defend its prosecution, arguing that there are sufficient historical analogues between the ban on gun ownership for people who use controlled substances and restrictions on firearms for those with mental illness, for example.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit this week reaffirmed its conclusion that the federal government violated the Second Amendment when it prosecuted a Mississippi cannabis consumer for illegal gun possession. In a decision published on Monday, a three-judge panel unanimously ruled that Patrick Darnell Daniels Jr.'s conviction for violating 18 USC 922(g)(3), which makes it a felony for an "unlawful user" of a "controlled substance" to possess a firearm, "is inconsistent with our 'history and tradition' of gun regulation." It therefore fails the test that the Supreme Court established in the 2022 case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

According to the government's lawyers, even state-approved patients who use cannabis for medical purposes are ipso facto so dangerous and untrustworthy that they have no Second Amendment rights. The question for the DOJ is rather the new Trump administration will continue this course or keep its promise to remove most barriers to gun ownership. Stay tuned.