Federal appeals court strikes down law prohibiting users of illegal drugs from possessing firearms
https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/09/politics/appeals-court-firearms-illegal-drug-users/index.html
CNN
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A federal appeals court in August struck down a decades-old law barring users of illegal drugs from possessing firearms – another blow to US gun regulations after the Supreme Court cleared the way for courts to reexamine the nation’s gun laws under a new legal standard – and a ruling that could be relevant in the new indictment of Hunter Biden.
In a unanimous judgment from a three-judge panel of the conservative 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the court said the 1968 law is unconstitutional, citing a landmark 2022 Supreme Court decision that changes the framework that lower courts must use when analyzing gun restrictions.
“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, a Ronald Reagan appointee, wrote for the panel. “Nor do more generalized traditions of disarming dangerous persons support this restriction on nonviolent drug users.”
The ruling means that the man who brought the challenge to the regulation, Patrick Daniels, will have his July 2022 conviction under the law thrown out. Daniels had been sentenced to nearly four years in prison and three years of probation.
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