Just as there was no historical justification for disarming a citizen of sound mind, there is no tradition that supports disarming a sober citizen who is not currently under an impairing influence. Indeed, it is helpful to compare the tradition surrounding the insane and the tradition surrounding the intoxicated side-by-side. The Founders purportedly institutionalized the insane and stripped them of their guns; but they allowed alcoholics to possess firearms while sober.
We must ask, in Bruen-style analogical reasoning, which is [defendant Patrick] Daniels more like: a categorically “insane” person? Or a repeat alcohol user? Given his periodic marihuana (sic) usage, Daniels is firmly in the latter camp. If and when Daniels uses marihuana, he may be comparable to a mentally ill individual whom the Founders would have disarmed. But while sober, he is like the repeat alcohol user in between periods of drunkenness. …
[T]here is a considerable difference between someone who is actively intoxicated and someone who is an “unlawful user” under § 922(g)(3). The statutory term “unlawful user” captures regular users of marihuana, but its temporal nexus is vague—it does not specify how recently an individual must “use” drugs to qualify for the prohibition. Daniels himself admitted to smoking marihuana fourteen days a month, but we do not know how much he used at those times, and the government presented no evidence that Daniels was intoxicated at the time he was found with a gun.
Indeed, under the government’s reasoning, Congress could ban gun possession by anyone who has multiple alcoholic drinks a week from possessing guns based on the postbellum intoxicated carry laws. The analogical reasoning Bruen prescribed cannot stretch that far. …
The government suggests that, in the spirit of the drafts of the Second Amendment and the Militia Act, marihuana users threaten the public “peace.” But at the time of the Founding, that notion referred specifically to violence or rebellion, not generalized public harm. And § 922(g)(3) is not limited to those with a history of violent behavior—not all members of the set of “drug users” are violent. As applied in this case, the government has not shown how Daniels’s marihuana use predisposes him to armed conflict or that he has a history of drug-related violence.
Furthermore, even as the Founders were disarming Catholics and politically disaffected citizens, they left ordinary drunkards unregulated. The government has no meaningful response to the fact that neither Congress nor the states disarmed alcoholics, the group most closely analogous to marihuana users in the 18th and 19th centuries. As with the government’s analogy to mental illness, we must ask: Which are marihuana users more like: British Loyalists during the Revolution? Or repeat alcohol users? The answer is surely the latter. …
Daniels’s…conviction is inconsistent with our “history and tradition” of gun regulation. We conclude only by emphasizing the narrowness of that holding. We do not invalidate the statute in all its applications, but, importantly, only as applied to Daniels. Nor do we suggest that a robust Second Amendment is incompatible with other reasonable gun regulations. Such statutes just need to be consonant with the limits the Founding generation understood to be permissible when they ratified the Second Amendment. The government has failed to demonstrate that here.
— Eugene Volokh in Fifth Circuit’s Holds That People Who Use Marijuana Don’t Lose Second Amendment Rights (At Least When Sober)
(You can read the court’s full ruling here).
Hey guess whut? If you get high “14 daze a month” that pot stays in your system. I believe pot users are less dangerous than alcoholic’s. Oh and “marihuana” is an alternate spelling if dated. No “sic” needed…
Why is the court spelling it like that? Hasn’t the preferred spelling in the US been marijuana for the better part of the past century? I wonder if there are old laws that spell it as marihuana, and they’re just being consistent with that?
IIRC it’s because that’s how it’s spelled in some states’ laws.
That’s how it’s spelled in Federal law.
I’ve fired employees for being high on cannabis while at work. That’s justified.
Someone driving a motor vehicle on a public roadway should be cited and/or arrested for being a danger to others. That’s justified.
But if someone wants to get high at home, that’s their decision and their right. Just like getting buzzed on beer. I myself have never – and would never, of course, since I carry – smoked pot, but someone should not ever be barred from their right to own a gun simply because they exercise another right within their own home.
Unfortunately, that’s why you can’t hire pot heads. They’re a liability waiting to happen. Every single person I know who does smoke / has smoked, has been high at work before. Even the professionally successful ones I know have done it.
Courts have held bars liable for not cutting off boozers who stumble off and caused accidents. Pot smokers are prone to forget parts and stuff like cotter pins, tightening oil pan plugs, filters, lugnuts, etc. which is also a liability issue.
The matter is too complex to throw everyone into one bowl so it has to decided on an individual basis. When it gets to the point family, friends and finally the lawman ask someone who fell off the wagon to cease causing problems and they fail to comply well there unfortunately has to be consequences for a fool’s lifestyle
Simply don’t inhale as a former president once said.
Yes I’m in management, and i see (smell) lots of smoking at work, or right before they get to work at least.
Depends on what union and position we are dealing with, if it is CSEA or PEF chances are we are stuck with them and the best we can do is write them up counsel and start adverse action procedures after several times of their coming in smelling of weed (oddly the same infraction for perfume and bo). Now the various police and security unions………..yeah they can move people rather quickly for that one.
I was a twenty year old wheelsman on a Great Lakes ore boat in the 70’s and more than once the mate, on my watch was drunk. He was the guy responsible for getting that 600 foot freighter down the river. Well at least one of us was sober.
^ 1,000!
Nailed it!
The condition “fit for duty” is a requirement of many jobs. This requirement does not only extend to substance use.
If you are drunk or high, you should not be in the operator’s seat.
I’ve seen far too many out of shape people trying to work physical jobs. If you are fat and have poor exercise tolerance, you should probably not be a first responder.
Nothing at all suspicious about a state that seeks to restricts citizens access to firearms, right to speak freely and invades their privacy every chance they get all while encouraging and profiting off the consumption of intoxicants and poisons.
Simply giving Biden Jr. an opt out on his 4473 problems.
I believe that was once called providing “bread and circuses.”
“I believe pot users are less dangerous than alcoholic’s.”
Over the last 30 years, psychiatrists and epidemiologists have turned speculation about marijuana’s dangers into science. Yet over the same period, a shrewd and expensive lobbying campaign has pushed public attitudes about marijuana the other way. And the effects are now becoming apparent.
Almost everything you think you know about the health effects of cannabis, almost everything advocates and the media have told you for a generation, is wrong. — https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/marijuana-mental-illness-violence/
While booze hounds have a plethora of violence attributed to alcohol consumption for millennia. I don’t “approve” of either. And Hillsdale has their own agenda🙄
Give five guys a bottle of whiskey and they’ll start a fight.
Give five guys a bag of pot and they’ll start a band.
Bullshit, they will still fight, over who gets the last slice of pizza…
“Roid rage” is mostly a myth. Alcohol rage, however, is very real, yet rarely mentioned. Things that make you go hmm… ($$$)
Unfortunately I have to mostly agree with you
Stand Up for Roid Rage !!… umm, cuz it’s hard to sit down with it.
A silly generalization.
Plenty of whiskey drinkers sit mello and plenty stoners act out violently. Beyond mental health and body chemistry the culture around you will dictate how you behave when under the influence.
Otherwise every ski lodge would breakout into drunken fistfights and Chicago would be having peaceful weekends.
People need to stop slowly killing themselves with drugs of all types.
Or clean out the fridge…
Bingo. Miner for the win.
The fighting whiskey drinkers will and should be arrested. And be allowed to sleep off their drunk in jail.
The pot smoking band members will mismanage and lose most or all their money. And some will eventually die of drug overdoses.
Back when heroin usage was the big taboo I used to ask cops who would get started on drugs and violence, “When was the last time you busted someone for beating up on his wife and/or kids?” The answer was usually something like last weekend or maybe even last night. Then I would ask, “When was the last time you arrested a doper who wasn’t having withdrawals for beating up on wifey or kiddies?” The answer was usually “Uhhh — I can’t recall.” I would then smugly say, “You made my point.” While both heroin and alcohol are central nervous system depressants, for some reason I have never been able to discover, alcohol seems to release the beast in some whereas most other central nervous system depressants have the opposite effect. Nothing scientific about my opinion, just the result of observing crime firsthand over the years.
Did you ever ask a police officer? How many intoxicated potheads, and other drug users, have they arrested for burglarizing someone’s home???
I believe under the law burglary is considered a non violent crime.
My childhood friend who was a cop told me. They arrested intoxicated criminals. Committing other crimes all the time.
Making drugs legal does not make all the crime go away. Especially when you’re intoxicated and you leave your home.
If you stay home know body cares. And no body will know.
“Making drugs legal does not make all the crime go away.”
Fentanyl costs literally pennies per dose produced in bulk.
Opiate crime drops to near zero if you make it cheap… 🙂
from 2019.
“And I soon realized that in all my years as a journalist I had never seen a story where the gap between insider and outsider knowledge was so great, or the stakes so high.”
never heard of covid/ vax? or the second amendment?
“…marijuana is too weak as a painkiller to work for most people who truly need opiates, such as terminal cancer patients.”
who cares? termnally ill have earned the right to a brompton cocktail. almost noone else deserves one. my siblings that died of smoking tobac had they’re appetites improved by mary jane.
“The most that can be said is that they offer intriguing evidence of a link.”
ah, so. mostly a waste of my time. chronic’s gonna chronic, the mentally fragile can’t handle much, monitored therapy good, self medicated not so much.
“who cares? termnally ill have earned the right to a brompton cocktail.”
Agreed, ‘C’ is an ugly way to go, give them whatever they want, however much as they want.
Is Brompton still being used? I haven’t seen a prescription for that in nearly 30 years…
Weed wasn’t illegal in America anywhere near the nation’s founding.
Yes, it is an intoxicant. So is alcohol, tobacco, and opium. All three alter the user’s consciousness to some degree, and have demonstrated addictive qualities.
As with alcohol and opioids, it’s not unreasonable to require sobriety when operating motor vehicles or firearms.
This nation is on the way towards at the least, decriminalization, if not outright legalization, and it’s about damn time…
Decriminalization is the worst of all options. It increases demand while leaving supply and distribution in organized criminal hands.
Once it’s decriminalized, criminals won’t be supplying it, capitalists will. Meaning, Wal-Mart pricing for weed, at Wal-Mart… 🙂
Factually incorrect. Decriminalization is what Mexico does. Production and distribution are still illegal, retail use is ignored. Cartels, gangs, and corrupt officials thrive on decriminalization, as addiction surges.
We should NEVER have been criminalized in the first place. Removing it permanently from any schedule of controlled or illegal substance is the answer. Once it’s LEGALIZED the prohibitions the cartels get rich from will eventually subside. We should never have allowed any law to be passed that would outlaw weed from being grown on our own property for personal consumption just like the moonshine laws in many states.
None of this means anything until it’s removed from federal law and the 4473 is changed to reflect it. Without that, it’s just talk.
In April 2022, two law enforcement officers pulled Daniels over for
driving without a license plate. One of the officers—an agent with the Drug
Enforcement Administration (“DEA”)—approached the vehicle and recog-
nized the smell of marihuana.
So we just happened to have a DEA agent pulling someone over for driving without a plate? What are the chances that someone randomly gets pulled over by a federal agent?
Why is a DEA agent enforcing state laws, not his purview, not his jurisdiction… Sounds a bit like a bad fiction novel in the making…
Why are those scumbags enforcing any kind of laws?
“So we just happened to have a DEA agent pulling someone over for driving without a plate?”
Anyone actually know the source of legal authority for a federal agent to have simple police power to enforce state traffic laws?
The agent could have been riding shotgun with a local cop. It said one of the officers was an agent. But why?
Why would a DEA agent be riding with a local cop? Why ro facilitate Asset forfeiture, you know, the legalized theft of property from any citizen they can steal it from.
Sam, yes they can, although I seriously doubt they have a citation book, but they definitely can use a traffic violation as probable cause for a stop. A guy I went to high school with was sitting at a traffic light in Tallahassee many years ago. “Boog” had shoulder length hair and drove an AMC Javelin w/a 405 that he had hopped up a little. He said there were two old guys in suits and sunglasses stareing at him. He gave them the finger. He quickly discovered they were FBI agents.
As for pot heads they were very easy to deal with most of the time. Drunks, coke and meth heads not so much.
They ought to make pot legal anyway. There are two large grow facilities to my West. When the wind is right the smell will knock you down. I know two LEO that own stock in the company. There are probably more.
“…yes they can, although I seriously doubt they have a citation book, but they definitely can use a traffic violation as probable cause for a stop.”
Most interesting.
Sam, someone above questioned jurisdiction. Federal agents have jurisdiction in all fifty states as well as U.S. territories. I believe the FBI has jurisdiction to investigate crimes by/on U.S. citizens on the high seas.
“Federal agents have jurisdiction in all fifty states as well as U.S. territories.”
IIRC, federal agents have jurisdiction regarding federal law. While there are a zillion federal laws, I don’t remember any case where federal agents have jurisdiction over state laws that are not mirrored in the federal code.
JFK’s assassination was not a federal crime, but a state murder case. Subsequent federal law/legislation was required to make killing a president a federal crime (federal jurisdiction).
They have to point out to the court why they decided to tear your car apart looking for drugs if they ostensibly pulled you over for going one mph over.
“They have to point out to the court why they decided to tear your car apart looking for drugs if they ostensibly pulled you over for going one mph over.”
As I understand it, “civilian asset forfeiture” doesn’t require any probable cause, at all.
How do you think all the pot arrests of the 60s started? Where did I just read about some dude who flipped off a cop. Unfortunately for dude, he had something hanging from his mirror. Illegal in CA. Cop followed dude into the 7-11 parking lot and informed dude he was making a traffic stop. Dude informed him he was not and turned to walk into the 7-11. Cop pounced on dude. Dude resisted. Cop pounded dude significantly. All the ANTIFA a.h.s are claiming illegal stop; illegal pounding. Wrong slimy ones. An equipment violation is sufficient for a traffic stop. Cops used to regularly testify that they observed bald tires, taillight out, license plate light out etc., etc., etc., It got so ridiculous one of the office jokes was that marijuana smoke had a deleterious effect on automotive wiring. The other was that we should use a transcript form for marijuana usage. Officer_____(fill in the blank) observed _____(multiple choice here) upon approaching the vehicle observed_____ (more multiple choice) and obtained permission to search the vehicle. Upon searching the vehicle he found ____ (more multiple choice but all involving marijuana.) Probably cause for a stop doesn’t have to be a moving violation. It can be anything from expired registration to junk hanging from the mirror to a dent which in the officer’s opinion might interfere with the safe operation of the vehicle, allowing the officer to make a traffic stop to inspect the damage and insure that it isn’t affecting the safe operation of the vehicle. Once stopped and upon approaching the open window Ole Eagle Eye/Nose either spots burnt marijuana seeds on the floorboards or smells the odor of marijuana emanating from the car or observes that the driver appears impaired in some manner, thus providing grounds for ordering everybody out of the car and radioing for backup and a search of the vehicle for weapons or contraband. Haven’t worked in court for about 30 years but I doubt that the testimony has changed all that much. A relative was a public defender and I used to get regular reports on what was going on in court. Don’t get me wrong. I think law enforcement should strictly follow the law. What does it say about our system that law enforcement regularly violates the law? All the accused’s right should be scrupulously protected. At the end of it all, I have no problem with heavy sentencing for serious crime and the death penalty promptly carried out for heinous killing. Unfortunately the prerequisites of cops not lying on the stand and the prosecuting attorneys not being scrupulous about observing that all the accused’s rights are afforded with the connivance of the courts are too often present thus making our court system a joke. Which the courts cover up by inappropriately mild sentencing and parole boards, made up of political appointments are too much swayed by who is making the appointments. That happens to be the governor in CA.
“How do you think all the pot arrests of the 60s started?”
MJ is listed on a federal schedule of illegal drugs; thus, federal agents have jurisdiction (as state agents have state jurisdiction). Nothing from the 60s indicates federal jurisdiction over traffic stops. If a traffic violation alone was “probable cause” for federal enforcement of local ordinances, not seeing federal jurisdiction for the stop (maybe we only have a partial reporting of the facts).
picking nits here. the early amx two seaters were 390cu, the later javelins were 401cu, somewhat detuned.
alcoholics making cars.
My first car in 1981 was a real POS, a ’75 AMC ‘Sportabout’ wagon. Green car with a white hood and a tan door, automatic with a clapped-out 6-cylinder.
I called it my custom 3-tone paint job. Had a nice stereo in it, and an SSB CB radio with a ‘Pride’ 150 watt linear on it. It was fun chatting with folks in Europe on my way to work… 🙂
My first car was a pontiac star chief. It was a barge that had wheels rather than a rudder and propellers.
Godawful gas guzzler. But it was mine. Freedom.
MY 1st car was a souped up 1962 Ford Galaxie 500. 390 engine I think with Thrush mufflers. Paid $140 for it from a neighbor. I was 18 in 1973. Sadly wrecked by my dumbazz😕
tsbhoa, you’re probably right. It was a long time ago.
Wait, isn’t this the Hunter Biden escape clause?
Sam, someone above questioned jurisdiction. Federal agents have jurisdiction in all fifty states as well as U.S. territories. I believe the FBI has jurisdiction to investigate crimes by/on U.S. citizens on the high seas.
The FBI may have jurisdiction to investigate crimes by/on US citizens on the high seas, but only the Coast Guard can board ships. The US Coast Guard are Federal law enforcement officers.
Even the Navy has no jurisdiction to board ships (except in wartime). Some Navy guy I talked to didn’t know that, thought that the Navy could board ships, because he served on Navy ships that boarded other vessels, such as pirate boats, so he naturally assumed the people on that Navy ship who were boarding ships were Navy personnel (he was unaware that Coast Guard personnel would have been on the bridge directing the operation).
I informed him, the Navy can board ships only if there is a US Coast Guard detachment onboard the Navy ship. Navy ships routinely carry US Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachments (LED) onboard so that they will have the authority to board other vessels such as pirate boats. From what I understand, the Navy ship doesn’t even have to have a complete Coast Guard LED, just one or more Coast Guard personnel, and they don’t have to be in the small boat that conducts the boarding; they can be sitting on the ship’s bridge directing the operation by radio. When the Navy is involved in boarding operations, the US Coast Guard detachment on that Navy ship is in charge of leading the boarding operation, so even if the Coast Guard officer onboard is of lower rank, he can override the Captain of the Navy warship during boarding operations.
It’s understandable that my Navy friend didn’t know this, because Navy warships carry hundreds of sailors, and most of them aren’t on the bridge, so the Navy sailor probably never saw the Coast Guard officer(s) who was onboard during the boarding operation. Of course, in wartime, the Navy can board an enemy ships. In peacetime, the Navy and Marine Corps can’t board other ships, but they can still repel enemy ships from boarding US or allied ships, which is what they plan to station Marines on commercial tankers in the Persian Gulf, to repel boarders.
So they can own guns when they are not high, does that mean that when they are, they have to surrender them?🤔
Sounds like a biden plot to EFF us!
“The only dope you been smokin’ is you.” is just as true today as it was the day Larry Norman first said it.
The “FOUNDERS” got drunk and got high. Some also did peyote with neighboring Indians. The 2A bars nor bans neither. The outlawing of marijuana has been a fraud since day #1. I personally dont imbibe in intoxicants but I fear none that do. Arresting folks for it when they’re not really intoxicated only serves to provide more revenue for govt. entities.
Legalizing drugs, decriminalizing drugs has made the city’s economically unsupportable.
Manufactured by the progs to let Bobbie Hunter OBiden off his felon gun charge.
Alcohol is legal while pot is not on the Federal level. Getting ripped on prescription drugs may be legal, but using while armed is a poor choice.
Don’t want to lose the RTKBA? Put down the bong and quit playing word games with the law.
Now, my own opinion is do whatever poison you want. But there should be zero tolerance for any intoxicant while armed. Even out here on the homestead, the guns get put away and locked up before the alcohol comes out. Never liked pot. Tried it a couple times as a much younger man. Didn’t like it. Tried other things way back when as well. And left them behind long ago. Scotch or bourbon and a little beer or mead from time to time I do enjoy. Beer and mead I make myself. Since running a still is illegal, I don’t make my own whisky.