“It’s bizarre that a medical marijuana cardholder cannot purchase a firearm, but a person on the no-fly list can. As the law stands, marijuana is an unlawful drug, and the inability to purchase a firearm is a consequence of that legal status. The law simply does not provide many protections for unlawful drug users, even though state policy on marijuana distinguishes cannabis from other substances.” – Daniel Shortt in The Absurd Reason Medical Marijuana Users Are Banned From Buying Guns [via attn.com]
“It’s bizarre that a medical marijuana cardholder cannot purchase a firearm, but a person on the no-fly list can.
Sort of interesting that the medical marijuana cardholder usually consents and volunteers to get one, and the person on the no fly list gets on it by an anonymous bureaucrat without their consent.
Actually both the drug laws and no fly lists are total crap and totally arbitrary.
Drugs are bad..mmmmkay? Alcohol and tobacco are good…mmmkay?
Due process is good…mmmkay? No fly lists are good ….mmmmkay?
Interestingly enough though you can work for DHS or the DOJ on the “no-fly” list.
right up until you go aloha snackbar in the name of ISIS.
when DHS basically became the umbrella organization of all federal law enforcement is when the downward spiral really got out of control
It’s an arbitrary and stupid denial of rights.
That’s what it is.
” Arbitrary and Capricious” that’s the same thing Massachusetts residents say about Massachusetts licensing laws…Nothing new, more government run amok! Until people band together against the forces of anti-freedom, Globalists, Liberals-their collaborators, the national news media–Which we all know doesn’t have a shred of journalistic integrity! And they Don’t even hide that anymore…We continue to allow this to happen. Divide and conquer—it’s the olds trick in the book….
The government love them a good drug war, long time.
It allows the continual attack on the civil liberties of the citizenry, growing the power of government in controlling the people.
It allows for the government to feed at the public trough, both through taxes, as well as bribes and graft to the police in the street and to the judges.
It allows for asset forfeiture, which allows the police to seize and keep any property and money to fill their pockets from “suspected drug dealers”, without due process.
And since the drug war does not actually keep any drugs off the street, the government is guaranteed a “War” that will never end, which means a source of ever growing government power and control over the people, and an ever growing source of money to keep filling their pockets.
Yep, they love a good drug war, long time.
All illegal drugs should be legalized and handed out for free in every corner store. That way all the thieving junkies that burglarize homes, rob cashiers, and break into cars for loose change can overdose on their unlimited legal drug supply and make this world a better place.
Well we could always go back to prohibition.
I think that Bill Hicks nailed it when he said “Its not a war on drugs, its a war on personal freedom. Its what it is OK. Keep that in mind at all times. Thank you.”
At it’s root the “War on Drugs” relies on Gun Grabber logic and therefore should be supported by exactly 0 freedom loving POTG.
I don’t do drugs and I don’t advocate that anyone does. However, I think people should have the freedom to make their own decisions, especially about what chemical compounds they ingest. We’re either free or we’re not. More and more even supposed lovers of Liberty are championing infringement on our right to make decisions for ourselves.
This is just another example of that. I don’t see anything in the 2A that says “shall not be infringed unless…”.
Nice Bill Hicks reference strych; you and I could hang
If only drug use didn’t suck resources from the rest of us. We all end up with the problems and bills. Children from drug homes become problems. Working with drug users is a pita and living with one even worse. Drug use has medical costs we all bear eventually and good luck denying care.
No such thing as a drug user only affecting themselves. Everybody around them suffers. But let good times roll and call it freedom I guess.
There’s that grabber logic!
If you don’t realize you’re engaged in grabber logic now would be a great time for you to check the basic premises of your argument.
All of your objections are actually caused by the prohibition itself, and other government policies that destroy our individual liberty. The only way the drug users become a problem for “society” is the idea that everyone should somehow be responsible for the consequences. Individual liberty means that each person must also accept personal responsibility for their choices and actions… and live with the consequences rather than palming them off on everyone else.
We have a winner! MamaLiberty wins the interwebz for the day!
Collective responsibility is a lefty idea and the basis for drug laws, gun laws etc.
At it’s core the concept is “You’re not responsible enough to be that free, so we’ll have to limit what you can do because: the group”. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about laws on pot, beak, blotter acid, NFA gear or that firebreathing freedom enhancer known as the AR-15 platform. It’s all the same bullshit logic when you get right down to it: you’re dumb so we’ll make these decisions for you and call them “laws”. Break one and there are severe consequences because we’re in charge and don’t you forget it!
Even further, the proponents of gun and drug laws both assume that society is better off with the laws when it’s fairly demonstrable that people’s civil liberties are harmed, the laws are applied unevenly, are hellishly expensive and don’t work.
If you can’t find yourself a gram of beak in your locality, or an illegal gun, you’re not really trying to find it.
Thanks, strych9… I’ve been writing that for fifty years and so often feel like I’m in an echo chamber all alone. I’m actually starting to see this repeated here and there across the web… just hope there’s time for more folks to join us.
MamaLiberty:
It’s simple logic and I don’t understand why people don’t see it.
The argument that drug use takes up resources, on it’s face, a canard. The WoD only takes up more resources and doesn’t prevent the drug abuse nor stop the drugs. If anything it only increases the cost of those drugs at street level which makes the problem worse.
I mean, let me get this straight: drug abuse causes us to have to spend money on healthcare and child services, but the WoD costs us tens of billions a year on top of the medical and child services and doesn’t stop the drug use so it’s good? That makes no sense. Some might call that “Throwing good money after bad”.
It doesn’t matter how the pro-WoD people want to argue this. This is no moral, logical, economic, or ethical defense for the WoD when you come right down to brass tacks.
The WoD shreds the Constitution in numerous ways, costs us unbelievable amounts of money, results in the largest prison population on the planet, enriches dealers and distributors to levels that would make Solomon blush and it doesn’t stop the drugs or the drug use!
Strych9 and MamaLiberty Dropping some knowledge bombs in the comments! Once again y’all give me hope that sanity and common sense will one day allow us again to be truly free!
The problem with this line of thinking, is that nobody really believes in it. Everyone talks a good game about individual liberty, but the fact is that individual liberties collide. People in contact means rights in conflict. When that happens, many of the “individual liberty” crowd decide that their individual liberty trumps someone else’s individual liberty.
“My rights win! Ta da!”, the Individual Liberty Lover proclaims.
“But….but what about my rights that conflict with yours? Why must my rights lose and you export the cost of
exercising your rights to the rest of us?”, the affected party wonders.
“Shut up and light my joint, I have brain surgery to perform”, is the response.
“But….but what about my rights that conflict with yours? Why must my rights lose and you export the cost of
exercising your rights to the rest of us?”
Pray tell, what rights would you be losing with the legalization of drugs? How does someone smoking a joint on their couch cost you your rights? You would lose no rights if drugs were legal. In fact, ending the WoD would restore a number of your rights that you likely don’t even realize you’ve lost.
You realize that as soon as the word “drugs” comes up your 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendment rights pretty much go out the window? Do you realize that if you have a decent amount of cash on you they can just say “drugs”, take your money, and if you pay a ton more money go to court and agree to sign an NDA you MIGHT get 40% of your money back? You know they can do that with your business or anything else you have of value too? They have no need to prove that you were involved with drugs at all, you have to prove otherwise. That’s totally ass-backwards in our system but that’s how the WoD works.
Someone, please, for the love of everything Holy tell me what we’ve gotten that’s a plus out of the WoD? Just one thing! Just one actual, tangible benefit!
Then explain to me how that’s worth billions of tax dollars a year, destruction of our Civil rights, a war zone stretching from Mexico to Peru, gang warfare and all the rest of it?
You need to watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fGm_jg45To
And then learn what the words “Your liberties end where MY NOSE begins” mean.
What others do in their own homes can, in no way, be interpeted as effecting your nose. Even if you do get it out of joint sometimes. If your nose gets out of joint when someone does something you dislike, that is a problem in your nose, and not in them…
What percent of your taxes actually go to paying for drug addicts? What percent go to paying for another trillion dollar mess in the middle east? How about another nice pants suit for Hildabeast? Would you contribute to help some rancher on the border whose child got kidnapped by a Mex cartel? Why not help that same rancher if his child got addicted to mexican heroin?
LOL I saw Bill Hicks at a comedy club circa 1987. He functioned somewhat well for a guy stoned out of his mind. And I have a couple of old(over 60) friends who get high quite often-both have beaucoup guns. No real criminal records and they’ve both had jobs/families and never went crazy. Take your pot use underground-like presidents Bill Clinton,W and ganja boy Bury Soetoro ?
I’d like to have seen him live but I was three in 1987. Thankfully through magic of technology I can still enjoy his comedy the same way I do with Richard Pryor or the music of people who died before I was born.
Bill Hicks was the best of the best. Even when I didn’t agree with him, he made me think while he made me laugh.
What did Hicks ever say that could be disagreed with? Besides the Goatboy thing and the whole ‘rant in E’ thing, OFC, which was just a guy pissed off at an abusive audience.
Kenneth, Bill Hicks was vehemently anti-gun. Don’t get me wrong- I think he was a brilliant comedian, and I have several of his standup acts on my iPod, but he did bash guns and gun owners on many occasions in his material.
All of the same apply to the “War on Poverty” multiplied by trillions of dollars since mid ’60s.
“A drug is a drug”.
As long as we’re not talking about alcohol, or nicotine, or common script analogues for morphine and methamphetamine. The drugs that they have deemed to be illegal, and various agencies have sometimes imported to provide untraceable money, those drugs are bad. Got it.
Caffeine, too, it’s an addictive stimulant.
Fuck yeah it is. I agree 110% You should see my wife when she hasn’t had her coffee.
But people laugh that off. You can even buy mugs making light of coffee addiction. Double and triple standards abound.
The analogy is not correct. Regardless of the sensibility of the law, sale, possession and use of marijuana is still a federal crime. No crime is required to be included on the “No Fly” list.
Bottom line is that the NICS check is unconstitutional, whether or not you are a user of any “illegal” drug and the “No Fly” list is unconstitutional in that no due process is allowed or even considered.
We have deeper issues to confront here than the issue of illegal drug use – it is a classic red herring.
And as I pointed out yesterday, I think, the BATFE claims that users of illegal drugs may not use or possess explosives, but a firearm in and of itself does not contain any explosives. The sale of an unloaded firearm, therefore, should not come under the (unconstitutional) restriction as stated by the BATFE.
Well spotted.
The other side of the matter is also unconstitutional. This should be a no-brainer for the courts: when looking at a state law, just check the U.S. Constitution to see if the federal government is specifically granted any authority over the matter at hand; if it isn’t there, then the state law trumps federal law (since that’s what the Constitution itself tells us at the end of the Bill of Rights).
The easy solution is to legalize marijuana. That way, no one knows who smokes it and cannot use that information to deny anyone the right to RKBA
That’s the same sort of “easy solution” compromise that the NRA used to get us the (unconstitutional) NICS background checks in the first place.
We can no longer afford to compromise with our acknowledged enemies (the Democrats) on this issue. NICS and the majority of other firearm-related laws are prima facie UNCONSTITUTIONAL: “…shall not be infringed.” and I don’t give a fig about the opinion of SCOTUS on the matter of acceptable regulations.
Um, no. To be consistent, both NICS and laws against marijuana fail for the same reason: there’s no constitutional authorization to do either. Sure, one is prohibited directly, but the other is also prohibited because it is not specifically authorized.
Thomas Jefferson would agree. He saw the problem over two hundred years ago with the potential for tyranny of a few human beings in black robes deciding, as the final arbiters, as to what constitutes “Constitutional”.
Cliff, it – seems – that you’re immersed in the dangerous left/right dichotomy. It’s far more useful and advantageous to the people to evaluate public policy through a different lens: what protects our personal freedom to choose how we conduct our own lives, and what takes it away. Put another way: Does a given policy give power to the people, or to government? If it gives power to government; if it gives government one more excuse to get involved in your private affairs, it is certainly a bad policy.
In this regard, when it comes to personal freedom, republicans are just as much an enemy to the people as democrats. If we reject policies simply because “the other party” supports them, then we lose all rational basis for law making, and we’re nothing more than sheep who are simply following the leader.
Question, you can’t buy a gun but do you get to keep the ones you already have?
I don’t smoke dope, my understanding is if you have cancer, it helps appetite?
Not just for cancer, but other disorders as well. I have a friend whose doctor recommended marijuana for appetite; he has bouts of apathy during which he just doesn’t care about eating, and marijuana changes that.
But it’s also very effective against PTSD; for most people it brings flashbacks to an end. Similarly, it is helpful in panic disorders, serving (when used regularly) to reduce full-fledged panic attacks to anxiety attacks (which for people who have dealt with both is a major improvement). Additionally, there are people with chronic pain for whom such truly dangerous drugs as oxycontin do little but marijuana is effective.
FWIW, here’s the actual question from the form:
” Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or
any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?”
Since when the Constitution provides the federal government with no specific authority over a matter state law constitutionally trumps federal law, if one’s state has authorized the use of marijuana for whatever reason, then the correct answer is “No” as far as marijuana.
“Question, you can’t buy a gun but do you get to keep the ones you already have?”
No. The statute that prohibits you from receiving a firearm or ammunition also prohibits the possession of a firearm or ammunition.
18 USC 922
“(g) It shall be unlawful for any person—
…
(3) (3) who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802));
…
to ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess in or affecting commerce, any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.”
There may be an argument that mere possession, without any other nexus to “interstate commerce”, is not prohibited. I wouldn’t want to be the test case.
“It’s bizarre that a medical marijuana cardholder cannot purchase a firearm, but a person on the no-fly list can.”
No it isn’t. The government can’t issue a medical marijuana card without your knowledge or consent, with no mechanism in place to get yourself taken off the list.
This is however how the no-fly list works.
Actually in some states once you’re on the medical marijuana list you’re on the list forever.
Nobody ever raises the issue that it took an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to outlaw alcoholic beverages yet everything else can be outlawed by a federal regulation. Interesting.
So is mere possession of the MJ card itself a crime? Kind of a pre-crime crime here at least on its face. And how do we know this is the case, that MJ card holders are not able to (illegal or not) to get guns from an FFL holder? Has anyone tried and been rejected? Is there a database or MJ card holders that the Feds have access to and do inteed access every time an FFL holder tries to sell a gun?
Yes, a woman in Nevada who was denied a pistol and sued. She claimed she had the card in case she ever needed it and was not a marijuana user. The 9th Circuit found that she was a prohibited person.
“So is mere possession of the MJ card itself a crime?”
No, but it might be prima facie evidence that you’re an unlawful user of a controlled substance, and thus a “prohibited person” under 18 USC 922(g).
“The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
— Ayn Rand
She was right.
“All animals are created equal. Some are just more equal than others.” – George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”
Also correct, across the board. Just replace the pigs with everybody who works inside the beltway…
Remember to thank the NRA for the GCA passing in the first place!
I already thanked them by cancelling my membership back in 1976. I’ve been thanking them the same way ever since.
These comments only serve to push me into the gun control camp. Many of you can’t be trusted to obey the laws. Rationalize it however you want, but I think I’m done here.
Au revoir, my love! Give my best to Bloomberg!
It was law in nazi Germany’s to turn in your neighbor if they were a Jew so that’s ok too? Just following the law here doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong? Must be nice to live in la la land
“Addicted to a Controlled Substance”
So, does that mean Chronic Pain patients, who are on several different controlled substances prescribed by their Physician (which has no choice but to become addicted to those substances), fall in that same area…or is it differentiated in another section?
I know several people who live with Chronic Pain, some of which can’t even be diagnosed with any underlying reason, and they’re all addicted to “Controlled Substances” by their Doctors Prescribing them for any length of time to start with. For some of them, the substances don’t even work well enough to stop/block the pain, but do offer a tiny bit of help to “take the edge off” the pain they deal with constantly.
All of these people are easy targets, when they are away from home (or even in their homes, these days), and many have a Concealed Handgun License for Protection. Obviously, they passed a FBI Background Check to have a CHL, so does that automatically mean that there is a provision for those people, in the law, even though they’re addicted to Narcotics or other Controlled Substances?
This is something that makes me curious, since what I read above seemed to suggest all Controlled Substances.
Well, no doubt some talking head will use that riff. “You can’t buy a gun if you have a ‘legal’ whacky weed card, but you *can* if you’re on the No Fly List.” Then, they’ll argue that clearly, they should ban people on the No Fly List, too.
Less banning things would solve this, too, but that will never occur to them. That’s the answer: “Well, how about we ban less stuff? How’s that working out so far, anyway?”
– Banning anyone, ever from doing something they want, is a positive harm.
– So, you wanna ban something, you gotta make the case, that the harm is worth the good.
Really, I don’t think the threat from the terrible tokers rises to the level of, say murder. (Conveniently, there’s 1:1 dead:murder. Dead from smoking the herb is somewhat less than that. Makes the math easy.)
Cartels, yes. They kill people, in their drug trade. But, organized crime goes with prohibitions. How much cartel violence is there when you can buy a case of Acapulco Gold at Wally-World?
The counter to propaganda, especially spewed by the sincere, is to run right at their silent assumptions.
If they want to get all wonk-y and jurisdictional, you can always note that this is what you get when you federalize things: somebody’s policy from one place, imposed on somebody else’s policy from somewhere else. Much like rising to the lever of murder, or close, before we ban something, maybe we should look for a higher threshold before we let one bunch of folks impose their preference on somebody else.
Huh. So the interactions with the government are not immune to the law of unintended consequences? Captain Toke and Friends thought they’d just get their chronic on and that would be the end of it, with zero blow back?
Think about that, national reciprocity seekers, when you naively think that such a federal law would consist of just that and not come riddled with counter checks that overwhelming infringe numerous freedoms in exchange from a slight relaxation of just one.
Is getting intoxicated more important than getting a gun???
I know their are real medical uses for Marijuana.
I also know pot heads very well. Stubing your toe is a reason to get high to them.
If you shoot while under the influence and miss should you be held accountable?
Hey guy, my grandpa was a legit war hero, 3 tours in the south pacific, silver star, 2 purple hearts and then some. He never slept real well because of the schrapnel in his back and the bullet holes in his arms and legs. He never had access to med marijuana, if he did, maybe he could have used that to reduce stress, get some sleep and let his mind and body heal. As it was, he was drunk and puffing on cigarettes 24/7 and still manages to take pretty good care of his family. It would have been a lot easier if he had some good mj, for him and his family. Now we have an entire generation of guys like my grandpa coming home, if they make the adult choice to choose marijuana over booze, cigarettes ambien, opiates, antidepressants etc and they get licensed by their home state to do so, do you really think they deserve to loose their god given right to a firearm? Get the fuck outta here. And BTW, I know a few “pot heads” who are as fucking hard as they come, so any time you want to have a rock kicking contest, let me know, I’ll see if I can set something up.
If marijuana smokers don’t want another “illegal and unconstitutional” executive action by Obama, they should take the fiscally conservative position of Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and legalize it instead of having to carry around an ID card that denies them their 2nd amendment rights.
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