The United States' Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday struck down a 1968 law that prohibits "an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance" from possessing a gun.
"In short, our history and tradition may support some limits on an intoxicated person's right to carry a weapon, but it does not justify disarming a sober citizen based exclusively on his past drug usage," Circuit Judge Jerry Smith wrote.
"Nor do more generalized traditions of disarming dangerous persons support this restriction on nonviolent drug users."
Judges Stephen Higginson, Don Willett, and Smith were unanimous in their decision in U.S. v. Daniels.
The judges cited the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen from last year, which found statute 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), the same statute in Wednesday's case, to be unconstitutional.
"Already, as courts work through the impact of Bruen, defendants guilty of a gun crime in one jurisdiction are presently innocent of it in another," the judge said.
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy compared Wednesday's decision to Hunter Biden's ongoing federal investigation into his purchase of a firearm.
"Unlike Daniels, who by his own admission is a regular marijuana user, Biden was a cocaine addict who was provably binging on cocaine in the October 2018 time-frame when he possessed at least one firearm," McCarthy said.
(Here's a story on that for more background.)
Back to McCarthy:
"So the cases can be distinguished. Nevertheless, it would not be unreasonable for the Justice Department to say it needed to rethink prosecution standards for 922(g)(3) in light of the Daniels decision. Of course, the question would then be whether Hunter Biden was being given favorable treatment — i.e., was he being given a pass when the Biden Justice Department would still prosecute similarly situated people? It's too early to answer that question."
