We all know how President Joe Biden feels about guns. He campaigned on gun control, bragged about his role in passing the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban, and has done everything he could think of to attack our right to keep and bear arms.
There’s not a lot of doubt about where he stands.
On marijuana, his rhetoric is very different. He tends to support legalization at the state level and doesn’t think marijuana users should be arrested. He’s been very favorable toward those who use it.
At least, up to a point.
You see, some people who use pot in compliance with state laws also want to have guns, and that’s a bridge too far for Biden.
In his State of the Union address this month, President Joe Biden declared that “no one should be jailed for simply using” marijuana or “have it on their record.” He amplified that message on X (formerly Twitter) that night, saying, “No one should be jailed just for using or possessing marijuana.” Biden said those things on the same day that federal prosecutors in North Carolina filed a brief defending the federal ban on gun possession by cannabis consumers, whom they likened to “lunatics” and violent felons.
Biden, who during his 2020 campaign promised to “decriminalize the use of cannabis,” thinks marijuana users are not doing anything that justifies arresting them. Yet his Justice Department simultaneously insists marijuana users are so dangerous that they cannot be trusted with guns even when they are completely sober—so dangerous, in fact, that they are altogether excluded from “the people” whose “right to keep and bear arms” is guaranteed by the Second Amendment. That insulting and scientifically baseless portrayal of cannabis consumers could prove to be a problem for a president who is desperate to motivate young voters by touting his supposedly enlightened views on marijuana.
‘The People’ Do Not Include Marijuana Users
The Biden administration has been pushing its benighted description of marijuana users in federal courts since 2022. Its argument has been rejected by several judges, including a unanimous 5th Circuit panel. Last October, Louise Flanagan, a federal judge in North Carolina, joined them when she dismissed a charge under 18 USC 922(g)(3), which makes it a felony for an “unlawful user” of a “controlled substance” to receive or possess firearms. In a March 7 brief, two assistant U.S. attorneys, David Bragdon and Sarah Nokes, urge the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit to overturn Flanagan’s decision.
As is often true in criminal cases that raise civil liberties issues, the defendant in United States v. Alston is not exactly sympathetic. But keep in mind that the Biden administration’s argument is not limited to cannabis consumers with a history of violence. It applies to all of them, even if they have never done anything to suggest they pose a threat to public safety and even if they live in states that have legalized marijuana. Judging from survey data on past-month consumption, more than 40 million Americans qualify as “current” marijuana users, which according to the Justice Department means they have no Second Amendment rights.
Now, this is being billed as an act of hypocrisy, which it is. If marijuana users are so docile and trustworthy that they shouldn’t be jailed for the use of a controlled substance, even in states where it’s still illegal, then why shouldn’t they be able to have a firearm? Especially when there’s no history of violence.
The Department of Justice is pushing this idea not because marijuana users are especially dangerous–the only thing in danger from your average pothead is the snack food aisle at your neighborhood curb store–but that we are dangerous.
The Biden administration doesn’t trust us with firearms. Not really.
Look at every move he’s made since he was sworn into office. He’s gone after guns in every way he can, all with the goal of reducing firearm ownership as much as he can.
The extension of that, though, is what they’d like to do if the administration thought they could get away with it.
No, I don’t think it would be a complete and total ban. After all, “Shotgun through the door” Biden would probably want to preserve his ability to have guns, or his son’s, but not yours or mine. He’d likely make the regulations too expensive and onerous for most people to lawfully have firearms, all while his donors can keep theirs.
Possibly even while using drugs that are illegal under federal law.
After all, Hunter seems to have gotten a pass, so why shouldn’t they?
For any claims Biden has made regarding support for the Second Amendment, we know damn good and well that he has none. This whole fiasco with guns and pot just makes it very clear.
