Last summer’s landmark
Supreme Court
decision that bolstered
Second Amendment
rights continues to have sweeping impacts across the nation as more and more judges rule against existing firearms laws.
A man who violated a law in August that blocked marijuana users from possessing firearms had his charges dismissed on Friday by U.S. District Judge Patrick Wyrick, an Oklahoma City-based appointee of then-President Donald Trump, who ruled the law violated the Constitution’s Second Amendment under the Supreme Court’s June ruling in New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
The judge maintained the government has the authority to protect members of the public from dangerous people possessing guns but concluded it could not assert Jared Harrison’s “status as a user of marijuana justifies stripping him of his fundamental right to possess a firearm,”
according
to court filings.
LAW BARRING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE OFFENDERS FROM PROCESSING GUNS UNCONSTITUTIONAL, COURT RULES
Harrison was charged in May 2022 following a traffic stop. When police searched his car, they found a loaded revolver and marijuana. Harrison told authorities he was on his way to work at a medical marijuana dispensary but did not have a state-issued medical marijuana card.
Federal prosecutors argued a portion of Oklahoma’s law focused on drug users and firearms ownership is “consistent with a longstanding historical tradition in America of disarming presumptively risky persons, namely, felons, the mentally ill, and the intoxicated.” But Harrison’s attorneys were successful in swaying Wyrick to side with them, arguing the law doesn’t comply with the Supreme Court’s standard in Bruen.
Part of Wyrick’s decision was influenced by Oklahoma’s laws surrounding marijuana, noting that while it’s still illegal under federal law, people with medical licenses can legally purchase the substance. He also said using marijuana is “not in and of itself a violent, forceful, or threatening act.”
“The mere use of marijuana carries none of the characteristics that the Nation’s history and tradition of firearms regulation supports,” Wyrick wrote, relying on the Bruen decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas that
underscored
the legality of gun laws “demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history.”
Laura Deskin, a public defender representing Harrison, said the ruling was a “step in the right direction for a large number of Americans who deserve the right to bear arms and protect their homes just like any other American.”
Since the landmark decision in Bruen last summer, gun laws have been tested in states where the Second Amendment has been long minimized by Democratic lawmakers seeking to implement gun control, such as
New Jersey
and
New York
, which have recently been scrutinized by federal courts for certain
“sensitive place”
gun laws.
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The ruling is notable in Oklahoma, which doesn’t require any permit to purchase a firearm from a private individual and is the only state in the union without red-flag gun laws.
Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit cited the Bruen decision when it
declared unconstitutional
a federal law blocking people under domestic violence restraining orders from owning firearms. That decision affects Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi.
