ST. PAUL, Minn. (Jan. 23, 2023) – A bill introduced in the Minnesota Senate would prohibit law enforcement from denying applications for gun carry permits solely based on a person’s enrollment in the medical cannabis registry.
Sen. Mark Koranh, Jeff Howe, and Bill Lieske introduced Senate Bill 89 (SF89) on Jan. 10. Under the proposed law, a person could not be denied the right to purchase, own, possess, or carry a firearm solely on the basis that the person is a qualifying patient in the state’s medical marijuana program.
State and local agencies would also be prohibited from inquiring about a person’s status as a qualifying patient or accessing a database containing the identities of qualifying patients or obtain information for the purpose of approving or disapproving a person from purchasing, owning, possessing, or carrying a firearm.
As Suzanne Sherman noted in an article for the Tenth Amendment Center, the federal government has long claimed the power to restrict the right to keep and bear arms of medical marijuana patients:
If you purchase a firearm from an FFL, you will be presented with the Firearms Transaction Record form 4473, which you must, under penalty of perjury, answer fully and truthfully. You may see it for yourself HERE.
Question 11(c) asks prospective gun purchasers if they are unlawfully using any controlled substances. You think, “Hey, I can answer ‘no,’ as marijuana is now legal in my state. Immediately following the inquiry is the following admonition (in bold letters):
“Warning: The use or possession of marijuana remains unlawful under Federal law, regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where you reside.”
Not surprisingly, in 2016, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of appeals ruled that this restriction does not violate the Second Amendment.
Most states have adopted this federal ban on owning firearms for medical marijuana users, or simply help in its enforcement. In Hawaii, for example, police sent letters to medical marijuana patients who owned guns telling them they had 30 days to surrender their weapons.
While the passage of SF89 wouldn’t overturn the federal Gun Control Act of 1968, it would end state and local enforcement of one aspect of that unconstitutional act in Minnesota. And as we’ve seen so prominently in immigration sanctuary cities and states with marijuana legalization, when state and local enforcement ends, the federal government has an extremely difficult time enforcing their acts.
Based on James Madison’s advice for states and individuals in Federalist #46, a “refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union” offers an extremely effective method to bring down federal gun control measures because most enforcement actions rely on help, support and leadership from the states. Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano agreed. In a televised discussion on the issue, he noted that a single state taking this step would make federal gun laws “nearly impossible” to enforce.
In 2018, Utah became the first state to pass legislation to help make federal gun bans for medical marijuana patients “nearly impossible” to enforce. The law prohibits expending any state or local resources, including an officer’s time, to “enforce a law that restricts an individual’s right to acquire, own, or possess a firearm based solely on the individual’s possession or use of cannabis in accordance with state medical cannabis laws.”
WHAT’S NEXT
SF89 has been referred to the Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee, where it must get a hearing and pass by a majority vote before moving forward in the legislative process.
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