Dude Where's My Car
Courtesy 20th Century Fox

Gun control advocates are having a tough time of it these days. After NYSRPA v Bruen, they’re actually having to prove their gun control laws are constitutional when they’re challenged, and to do so, they have to prove that similar restrictions were common practice when the constitution was ratified. Add the 14th Amendment (equal protection) into the mix and there are very few gun control laws that we should expect to survive legal scrutiny.

None of that, however, has stopped the gun control industry from trying to find creative workarounds that make them look awful in court filings. They’ve tried to use blatantly racist past practices to justify today’s gun laws, for example. But a recent one I’ve come across sounds a lot like the 2000 film Dude, Where’s My Car? and it’s hilarious.

A recent article at Marijuana Moment explains that Biden’s lawyers are taking the judge hearing the case of US v. Harris on a wild ride around the law to get to a place where, they claim, prohibiting gun possession by weed users is constitutional.

They start by asserting that when the constitution was ratified, it was common practice to ban the mentally ill and those who can’t stay sober from possessing guns. Then they try to apply this to people who smoke ganja.

This is where “Dude, where’s my gun?” comes in. As the DOJ’s argument goes . . .

Users are unlikely to put their guns away before using drugs and retrieve them only after regaining lucidity. And it is unclear how the government could reasonably administer a regime that permitted confiscation only during the several-hour period a person is intoxicated.

As “evidence” of this, they point to the man who is attempting to overturn a prohibited possession conviction in the case. In the course of an evening, he got both high and drunk enough to lose track of his pistol.

This case is an example: [defendant Erik Matthew] Harris claimed to lose one of his firearms (potentially at a bar) on the same evening that he smoked marijuana and was drunk.

The filing, of course, made all sorts of other arguments, including that drug use often coincides with mental health problems, but they admit that correlation doesn’t mean causation, so that’s weak and beside the point. What’s even weaker is that they use a situation in which a person abused alcohol (something many people do) and attempt to use that impaired mental state against marijuana users.

marijuana joint weed cannabis
Shutterstock

The DOJ doesn’t see how they could possibly enforce the law only during the period marijuana users are high. They don’t, however, seem to see that kind of problem with alcohol. Many states have prohibitions against gun possession while legally drunk.

Hopefully the Third Circuit Court of Appeals judges involved in this case can see what a flimsy house of cards they’re dealing with here and don’t make some of the same mistakes that the hapless protagonists of the 2000 film made. It might be a good idea to prohibit possession while actually impaired, but a blanket prohibition on possession by anyone who ever uses marijuana makes as much sense as banning possession by people who like to have an occasional beer on the weekend.

 

34 COMMENTS

  1. I’ve never lost my gun…..well, I forgot a few times to take it with me and a few times where I’ve stuffed it under the car seat when I ran into the doctors office because it’s tacky to be strapped when the female doctor examines your prostate. But then after going home with a big ole stiffy and much later in the house, I’m like, where the hell is my gun???

    • and a liquid substance commonly used on both sides the Atlantic Puddle, called “laudanum” had as is chief operant a concoction of marijuana. The Beatles had a fun little tune about “running for the shelter of Mother’s little Helper”, which was a not very cryptic reference to this marijuana tonic. In common use both sides the Puddle well prior to our Constitution being drafted.

      Tell the dims to stick that in their pipes and drink it or smoke it or however they want to consume it

      • Sorry, laudanum was an opiate concoction, and The Rolling Stones sang “Mother’s Little Helper” which was about diet pills- speed and or valium, or Quaaludes. All very popular in the ’60’s prescribed often as being harmless. “Little Yellow Pills”… No marijuana tonic about it.
        “Laudanum is a tincture of opium containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight (the equivalent of 1% morphine). Laudanum is prepared by dissolving extracts from the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) in alcohol (ethanol). Reddish-brown in color and extremely bitter, laudanum contains several opium alkaloids, including morphine and codeine”.

      • Yeahhhhh, No…. Mothers little helper is a Valium….

        Dr. please some more of these outside the door she took four more… AND it was the Rolling Stones…

  2. A problem with prohibiting possession only while impaired is scope.
    We have both a right to keep arms and to bare them outside the home. If there is a “while impaired” prohibition then it applies in-/out-side the home. You couldn’t adopt a rule of while impaired in the home.

    I think it’s a slam dunk to prohibit carrying outside the home.

    • IMHO a holstered gun on a drunk/high person’s belt is a lot like car keys in his pocket. As long as he doesn’t take them out he’s not endangering anybody. It’s not illegal to possess car keys while you’re impaired.

      • Gov,

        Unfortunately, at least in KKKalifornia, it is. If you are intoxicated (over the 0,08 limit) and have car keys in your possession, you are deemed to have the ‘intent to drive’. Not kidding you, my friend, I know a person that was busted for that. He wasn’t even in his car. He was leaving a bar. The funny part was – he’d already called an Uber to pick him up; he was planning to come back and get his car the next day.

    • While we are prohibiting Constitutional rights of impaired citizens let’s limit free speech, prayer, and women’s right to vote while any of the aforementioned are drunk.

  3. Clearly the soundest way for the government to bolster their arguments is to keep marijuana a Schedule 1 drug and to vigorously prosecute those that grow and distribute it.

    • Hasn’t worked yet, will more of the same work? Would people even put up with it, or would it radicalise more people? Seems like more people want pot legalised, including to my sure knowledge, even among police officers.
      Meanwhile, even a sure death sentence hasn’t stopped the sale and use of heroin in Iran…

      • Never said it would work as our “war on drugs” has proven, at the most we keep from being on every street corner. Like 99% of our laws, they’re obeyed only because most people aren’t dirt bags.

  4. Mark…The right to bare arms would mean the right to wear short sleeves.
    You can be arrested for being drunk and disorderly inside or outside your home. All it takes is a viable complaint from an occupant, neighbors or passer-by especially a complaint involving a dumbazz drunk posing a risk with a firearm.
    The case below concerns the reasoning behind a lifetime forfeiture of a Constitutional Right for drinking related arrests…
    https://thereload.com/federal-judge-rules-duis-cant-result-in-lifetime-gun-ban/

  5. Yes, drug laws worked so well that users have all been arrested so they are not free to possess a gun except Hunter but there are exceptions to the rule.

  6. I have a messed up back and instead of dopiods I thought I’d try some weed. I haven’t been into it for over 20 years and it’s legal here now. So I got to the dope store (leaving my piece in the car) come home and take a pretty big toke and almost fukin died! WTF are they selling! Mind was spinning had to lay down with a wet washcloth for a few hours. I told the kid behind the counter give me the weakest shit you got. I can’t imagine what that stuff is doing to peoples brains-no more for me.

    • I’ve been called out on calling weed dope. They said that’s what you old fckers call weed, dope is meth.
      Well I tried some of their Meth, just to see, and it ain’t the Meth I used to do back in the 70’s.
      Dope is closer to the truth because I think it’s made out of spider spray and FixAFlat and it certainly is for dopes.
      Huffing gasoline is cheaper.

    • Like I’ve said before (not to you, possum), the only dope you been smoking is you. And yes, that is from the ’70s but is still true today.

  7. Guess my libertine roots are showing here. Just the opinions of an old Boomer.
    The so called war on drugs has been much the same as most government initiatives. An expensive failure.
    Drop the whole line of prohibited drugs and allow the idiots to eliminate themselves. Nature weeding out the stupid.
    Now, I do agree with the idea of zero tolerance while carrying a firearm in public. And drunk, high or whatever else, the person should be held accountable for their actions. Drug or alcohol use, fine. Have fun. Want to own or carry a weapon? Sure, you have that right. Don’t really care if someone has a previous conviction. If someone is too dangerous or mentally disturbed/ill to have a firearm, then they are too dangerous to be out walking the streets.
    Now, along with those freedoms/rights come responsibilities. Commit the crime, do the time etc. Do something stupid/violent while intoxicated and pay the cost. Being drunk or stoned/high is not an excuse. Should be simple enough for anyone to understand.

  8. Y0ur c0mment is @wait!ng m0deration
    Y0ur c0mment is @wait!ng m0deration
    ““So the same lefti$t/f@scist/stat!$t bunch who’ve been enthusiastically expl0!ting the legalizat!0n of m@r!huan@ to harve$t v0tes now wants to utilize drug use to further gun prohibition? Doubleth!nk strikes again and Mr 0rwell is proven to be a prophet of the 21st century…”

    Interesting…I’ll try some minor rewording and see if this makes through the filters..”

    Nope – let’s try again…maybe we should all follow Gabby Johnson’s lead and learn to speak authentic frontier gibberish – dadgummit!

  9. Well, if pot makes one mentally ill then why ??? is there not a waiting period, a ‘psychological eval’, a check of social media, and training, and permit application with ‘subjective’ review by ‘officials’, criminal back ground check, requirement before purchasing pot in states where its legal, (and all the other things the anti-gun want for gun purchases under the guise of, collectively, mental health check and criminal background and ‘suitability’ etc…) when collectively for criminals, mental illness conditions/disorders (either short term, temporary, or long term, e.g. anger issues, anti-social behavior, habitual criminal, liberal narcissistic personality, gender identity issues, other issues) are the number one driver of over 95% of criminal violence (collectively)?

Comments are closed.