The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit has once again ruled that prosecuting individuals for gun possession based solely on marijuana use violates the Second Amendment.
This decision, issued by a three-judge panel, reverses the conviction of Patrick Darnell Daniels Jr., a Mississippi resident sentenced to nearly four years in prison under 18 USC 922(g)(3), a law that prohibits firearm possession by users of controlled substances. In August, the court ruled that a Texas resident cannot be prosecuted under a federal law that prohibits drug users from owning firearms, stating that the law is unconstitutional when applied to individuals with past drug use.
When it comes to Daniels, he was arrested in Hancock County, Mississippi, during a routine traffic stop in April 2022. Officers found firearms in his vehicle along with the remnants of marijuana joints. He was convicted of illegal gun possession and subsequently lost his Second Amendment rights permanently. However, the 5th Circuit overturned his conviction in 2023, ruling that the federal statute did not align with the Supreme Court’s test for gun regulations, established in the 2022 case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
The Supreme Court vacated the 5th Circuit’s earlier decision and instructed it to reconsider the case in light of United States v. Rahimi, a ruling that upheld firearm restrictions for individuals under domestic violence restraining orders. Despite this directive, the 5th Circuit reaffirmed its stance, citing its own decision in United States v. Connelly. In that case, the court struck down charges against a cannabis consumer, ruling that prosecuting habitual or occasional marijuana users for firearm possession is unconstitutional unless their drug use demonstrably impairs their ability to safely handle firearms.
In Monday’s ruling, Judge Jerry E. Smith emphasized that the government failed to prove Daniels was actively or recently impaired by marijuana use. Although Daniels admitted to using marijuana frequently and was found with both loaded firearms and marijuana in his truck, the jury was instructed that it did not need to determine whether he was intoxicated at the time of possession. This broad interpretation of “unlawful user,” the court held, could not be squared with historical firearm regulations.
The court also rejected the government’s analogies to historical laws that disarmed dangerous individuals, such as political dissidents or those deemed mentally ill. Judge Smith wrote that no historical precedent justifies stripping Second Amendment rights from marijuana users without evidence of significant impairment. While some Founding-era laws restricted public firearm possession for intoxicated individuals, none banned gun ownership for regular users of alcohol or other substances.
Although the court acknowledged that Daniels’ case was a “closer call” than Connelly, it concluded that his conviction imposed a greater burden on his Second Amendment rights than historical practices support. Judge Smith noted that disarming individuals for occasional or habitual marijuana use—absent evidence of persistent impairment—fails the constitutional test outlined in Bruen.
The decision stops short of invalidating Section 922(g)(3) altogether. Judge Stephen A. Higginson, in a concurring opinion, clarified that the ruling does not bar all applications of the statute. However, the court underscored that any prosecution under this law must align with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
This ruling directly contradicts the Biden administration’s defense of Section 922(g)(3). Federal attorneys have argued that even state-sanctioned medical marijuana patients are too dangerous to retain Second Amendment rights. The 5th Circuit’s repeated rejection of this reasoning signals a significant challenge to the federal government’s efforts to regulate gun ownership among cannabis users.
