Toke Or Tokarev? Ninth Circuit Says Medical Marijuana Patients Can’t Buy Guns

By Bob Owens

A three-judge panel of the infamously liberal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (also derisively known as the “ninth circus”) has ruled that a federal ban on on the sale of firearms to medical marijuana patients is constitutional.

A federal government ban on the sale of guns to medical marijuana card holders does not violate the Second Amendment, a federal appeals court said Wednesday.

The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals applies to the nine Western states that fall under the court’s jurisdiction, including California, Washington and Oregon.

It 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 obtaining 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 a person with a medical marijuana card uses the drug.

The 9th Circuit in its 3-0 decision said Congress reasonably concluded that marijuana and other drug use “raises the risk of irrational or unpredictable behavior with which gun use should …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms