The U.S. Department of Justice is appealing a recent ruling by Federal Judge Patrick Wyrick that deemed it unconstitutional to prevent people who use state-legal marijuana from using guns. The Justice Department revealed in a filing to the Western District of Oklahoma U.S. District Court that it would appeal the ruling at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
The appeal announcement by the U.S. government comes just a month after Wyrick’s landmark ruling.
Although the two-page filing doesn’t elaborate on the arguments behind the ban, U.S. Attorney Robert Troester and Assistant U.S. Attorney David McCray will flesh the arguments out in future filings at the appeals court.
In early February, Wyrick ruled that the statute prohibiting marijuana users from possessing firearms was in direct violation of the second amendment of the Constitution. Wyrick dismissed charges against an Oklahoma resident who had been arrested and charged after police found marijuana and a handgun in his vehicle after a traffic stop. He based his ruling on an interpretation of a prior Supreme Court ruling where the justices created a precedent of policies that imposed restrictions on Americans’ gun rights.
According to this ruling, any restrictions to the second amendment must remain consistent with the legislation’s original ratification in 1791.
Wyrick noted that cannabis use does not automatically make one “unvirtuous and dangerous” as the drug’s “mere use” does not involve threatening, forceful or violent conduct. He said that the historical analogues the Justice Department was using to justify gun rights restrictions for marijuana users “missed the mark” and did not provide enough basis for a historical analogue.
A few months before that, then-Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Nikki Fried unsuccessfully tried to challenge a law that prevented medical marijuana patients in the state from purchasing and owning firearms. She and her co-plaintiffs went on to file an appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on the basis that preventing medical marijuana patients from exercising their second amendment rights is unconstitutional.
In a May 2022 op-ed, Fried said that it was time for the federal government to catch up on marijuana, arguing that current federal cannabis laws are discriminatory and have a “widespread, negative impact on communities of color.” She said that the discrepancies in state and federal law are preventing thousands of people from gaining employment as well as access to capital, housing and education.
The gun rights under question affect individuals who use state-legal marijuana products, but those who use FDA-approved products, such as those that India Globalization Capital Inc. (NYSE American: IGC) hopes to successfully take through the clinical development process and attain FDA approval, can own firearms legally.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to India Globalization Capital Inc. (NYSE American: IGC) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://cnw.fm/IGC
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