Appeals court rules for man who challenged ban on illegal drug users possessing firearms

A federal appeals court ruled a ban on gun possession for users of illegal drugs is unconstitutional, as applied to a man who used marijuana.

The three-judge panel ruled Wednesday that that Patrick Darnell Daniels Jr.’s Second Amendment rights were violated in being convicted of the charge.

Law enforcement had pulled over Daniels for driving a vehicle without a license plate in April of last year.

The officers found two loaded firearms and several marijuana cigarette butts in the car. Although Daniels was not alleged to have been smoking at the time, he admitted being a regular marijuana user to law enforcement and was subsequently charged with the gun crime, court records indicate.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel reversed Daniels’s conviction Wednesday, finding the government did not pass the new test for gun restrictions outlined by the Supreme Court last summer: A law must be consistent with the nation’s historical regulation of firearms.

“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 Reagan appointee, wrote for the panel.

“Nor do more generalized traditions of disarming dangerous persons support this restriction on nonviolent drug users,” he continued. “As applied to Daniels, then, § 922(g)(3) violates the Second Amendment.”

Hunter Biden, the president’s son, has agreed to a pretrial diversion program on the same charge in his criminal case in Delaware. The 5th Circuit’s ruling does not immediately impact Biden’s case, but the decision adds to the increasing constitutional scrutiny on the provision in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision.

The court’s conservative majority ruled in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that individuals have a right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense, upending the standard courts had previously used to assess potential Second Amendment violations.

The decision has led to a flurry of cases in the lower courts attempting to apply the new historical test to various federal gun laws.

In Daniels’s case, the panel considered potential historical analogies about laws that governed firearm use for those consuming alcohol and those deemed dangerous, but the judges ultimately found the arguments unavailing.

“Although a few states after the Civil War prohibited carrying weapons while under the influence, none barred gun possession by regular drinkers,” Smith wrote in the ruling.

Circuit Judge Stephen Higginson, an Obama appointee, wrote separately to argue “that courts, operating in good faith, are struggling at every stage of the Bruen inquiry,” as he noted the various provisions already struck down by courts nationwide.

“Although our decision is limited in scope, it is hard for me to avoid the conclusion that most, if not all, applications of § 922(g)(3) will likewise be deficient,” Higginson wrote. “It is also important to acknowledge that other gun safety laws, especially longstanding status-based prohibitions previously understood to be constitutionally unassailable, have been recently struck down by courts across the country as they attempt to faithfully implement Bruen.”

The Supreme Court next term is set to hear a case about the constitutionality of a neighboring provision to the one at issue in Daniels’s case.

The justices will decide whether a federal ban on gun possession for people under domestic violence restraining orders is constitutional. The court agreed to take up the case after the 5th Circuit similarly struck down that provision.