Legalized Marijuana and Firearms.

[Hmac]

The Federal Government classifies Marijuana as a "Controlled Substance". The Federal Government does NOT recognize ANY Medical Prescription of Marijuana as "LEGAL". According to the Federal Government anyone using Marijuana, Prescription or not, is and ILLEGAL user. A Doctor cannot Legally prescribe Marijuana according to Federal Law.

To be more specific, the Federal Government classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug, which has no valid medical use, along with heroin, LSD, peyote, Quaalude, and Ecstasy. A physician's DEA license, necessary to prescribe any drug, does not include the abililty to prescribe Schedule I drugs, so from the Federal standpoint, there is no such thing as a legal marijuana prescription.

[Squib Joe]

The Federal Government classifies Marijuana as a "Controlled Substance". The Federal Government does NOT recognize ANY Medical Prescription of Marijuana as "LEGAL". According to the Federal Government anyone using Marijuana, Prescription or not, is and ILLEGAL user. A Doctor cannot Legally prescribe Marijuana according to Federal Law.

A Doctor can still recommend marijuana use to alleviate symptoms, a right guaranteed by the Federal government under the Constitution.

[steve4102]

The Federal Government classifies Marijuana as a "Controlled Substance". The Federal Government does NOT recognize ANY Medical Prescription of Marijuana as "LEGAL". According to the Federal Government anyone using Marijuana, Prescription or not, is and ILLEGAL user. A Doctor cannot Legally prescribe Marijuana according to Federal Law.

A Doctor can still recommend marijuana use to alleviate symptoms, a right guaranteed by the Federal government under the Constitution.

A DR cannot "Prescribe" Marijuana under Federal Law. What a DR "Recommends" is irrelevant and does not give his "patient" the legal right to break Federal Law.

[Frank Ettin]

...The fact remains that any declaration that someone is a "prohibited person" without that individual having the opportunity to argue his case before a judge is unconstitutional. It is a violation of the due process clauses of the 5th and 14 amendments.....

That is simply not true. If X tells me he is a user of marijuana, I'm perfectly free to call him a prohibited person and explain to him that federal prohibits him from possessing a firearm or ammunition.

Now if the U. S. Attorney want to throw that person in jail for being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm, then the U. S. Attorney must get an indictment and afford him due process.

...Also the requirement that a person answer the questions on form 4473 section 11 is potentially a violation of the 5th amendment protection against self incrimination...

Nope.

There is a good deal of case law on Fifth Amendment issues, and I know that you will find none to support your contention.

There are cases in which the Fifth Amendment privilege against being compelled in a criminal case to testify against yourself has been found to bar prosecution of a failure to file a tax return (Marchetti v. United States, 390 U.S. 39, 88 S.Ct. 697, 19 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)) and failure to register an illegally possessed NFA firearm (Haynes v. United States, 390 U.S. 85, 88 S.Ct. 722, 19 L.Ed.2d 923 (1968)). There are similar cases, but they all reflect a common theme:

1. A person's sole choices are, essentially, to commit a crime by failing to register or file something or admit a crime by registering or filing something.
   
   
2. And thus a person is compelled by law to testify against himself because if he doesn't do so by registering or filing something he can be prosecuted for failing to register or file.

But you commit no crime by not buying a gun. Therefore, you are not compelled to fill out a 4473 and thus, if you do so honestly admitting to another crime (e. g., being an unlawful user of a controlled substance) you have done so voluntarily. And since you are not legally compelled, on pain of criminal prosecution, to buy a gun, the Fifth Amendment, based on the reasoning of the cases I've cited, would not bar prosecution for your false statements on a 4473 in violation of 18 USC 922(a)(6) it you chose to attempt to buy a gun.

To support your Fifth Amendment argument you would need to find cases ruling that a mere desire or want is sufficient compulsion to support invoking the Fifth Amendment. Good luck with that.

Furthermore, looking at a sampling of appeals from convictions for making false statements on a 4473, the lawyers for none of those defendants raised the Fifth Amendment. It would be hard to imagine that all of those lawyers were incompetent for failing to raise the Fifth Amendment if it could have been a viable defense. I looked at these cases: U.S. v. Hawkins, 794 F.2d 589 (C.A.11 (Fla.), 1986); Brown v. U.S., 623 F.2d 54 (C.A.9 (Cal.), 1980); United States v. Beebe, 467 F.2d 222 (10th Cir., 1972); U.S. v. Ortiz, 318 F.3d 1030 (11th Cir., 2003); U.S. v. Ortiz-Loya, 777 F.2d 973 (C.A.5 (Tex.), 1985); and U.S. v. Graves, 554 F.2d 65 (C.A.3 (Pa.), 1977).

...You'll also note that 18 U.S.C. 922 (d) applies to the transferor of a firearm, not the transferee. Even if this statute were lawful, it does not prohibit a pothead from owning a firearm, it prohibits a person from knowingly transferring a firearm to a pothead. Specifically, it is a restriction on the selling FFL, not on the potential owner. If I were a pothead (which I am not) and was refused the sale of a firearm by an FFL due to my refusal to answer the questions in section 11 of form 4473, I could simply buy a firearm from a private individual, and keep my mouth shut during the transaction that I was a pothead. Going this route, no federal law has been broken regarding the transfer or ownership of the firearm....

Yes, 18 USC 922(d) prohibits someone from transferring a gun or ammunition to anyone he knows or has reasonable cause to believe is a prohibited person. So 922(d) does not prohibit a user of marijuana from possession a firearm or ammunition.

BUT 18 USC 922(g)(3) prohibits anyone who is an unlawful user of a controlled substance from possessing a gun or ammunition.

...Currently MN 624.713 Subd 1.(10)(iii) does prohibit a person who is an unlawful user of any controlled substance from owning a pistol or "semi-automatic assault rifle". This is also unconstitutional as again there has been no due process of law on the restriction of the right. However, in your hypothetical scenario where MN decriminalizes the medical use of marihuana, a person with a prescription would no longer be an unlawful user under state law. A pothead would be able to purchase a pistol from a non-FFL without any state or federal firearms laws being broken, provided he didn't notify the seller he was a pothead. ...

1. State law on marijuana is irrelevant.
   
   
2. Under federal law (the Controlled Substances Act, 21 USC 801, et seq.), marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance which may not, therefore, be lawfully prescribed or used. Therefore, any user of marijuana, even if legal under state law, is, under federal law, an unlawful user of a controlled substance.
   
   
3. Under federal law, a person who is an unlawful user of a controlled substance is prohibited from possessing a gun or ammunition (18 USC 922(g)(3)). Therefore, any one who is a user of marijuana, even if legal under state law, is a prohibit person and commits a federal felony by possessing a gun or ammunition.
   
   
4. Being a prohibited person in possession of a gun or ammunition is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and/or a fine. And since it's a felony, conviction will result in a lifetime loss of gun rights.
   
   
5. If anyone wants to bet up to five years of his life in federal prison (plus a lifetime loss of gun rights) on some fanciful notion of how he could get off or his hope that he won't get prosecuted, be my guest.

...This, despite the fact that both state and federal law are in violation of multiple protections in the bill of rights.

Not until SCOTUS says so.

...I am not a lawyer...

I am.

[LePetomane]

Given the fact that Barry O was an admitted unlawful user of pot, and doesn't simply possess a gun, but is in command of the entire US military, including its nuclear arsenal, should speak to the fact that potheads aren't overly dangerous.

Yes, he is dangerous. There is more of a threat of him waging a war on the citizens of his own country than launching a global nuclear war.

[jshuberg]

To support your Fifth Amendment argument you would need to find cases ruling that a mere desire or want is sufficient compulsion to support invoking the Fifth Amendment. Good luck with that.

Owning a firearm is not a "desire or want", it is a fundamental human right. Forcing a person to testify against himself in order to exercise a fundamental human right is an infringement. Any arguments to the contrary, whether supported by existing case law or not is wrong. It is an obvious infringement on it's face.

The government doesn't tell us what our rights are. The supreme court doesn't tell us what our rights are. Lawyers don't tell us what our rights are. We the people tell the government what our rights are. The protection of those rights were guaranteed against infringement in the bill of rights. And it's very likely that before the ink was dry certain people in our government began conceiving of ways that some of those rights could be circumvented with a rats nest of legalese, statute and case law designed to confuse the people into believing that infringement of their rights was in fact lawful.

Everyone who states that if a person who is a habitual pot smoker and owns a firearm are in violation of federal law are correct, and I do not anyone advocate breaking this or any other law. However, I believe that this law is unconstitutional. Not because of some precedent that has been established, but because a persons ability to exercise a fundamental right is being curtailed, and that a person may be potentially be forced to incriminate himself in order to exercise that right.

Our current legal system is a caricature of it's original intent. Wickard v. Filburn was a fundamentally flawed ruling that removed almost all of the limitations to the power of the federal government. The federal government no longer requires a constitutional charter to claim a power, provided that some aspect of it effects interstate commerce, or that some associated item has moved in interstate commerce. In today's modern world, that's pretty much anything and everything the federal government might want power to control and regulate. And it's absolutely wrong. The federal government was intended to be restricted in it's power. In fact a process as cumbersome as a constitutional amendment was intended to be required for the people to legally grant the government additional powers. The unfortunate reality is that government has presumed to steal additional powers that should have been relegated to the states or the people.

The Heller and McDonald rulings are still very recent. It took over 200 years for the Supreme Court to determine if the 2nd Amendment applied to the individual or not. The fact that no lawyer has apparently made these arguments doesn't invalidate them. With all due respect, I believe that you're looking at the issue too much like a lawyer, as someone who makes a living playing chess according to statute and existing case law. Would you argue that before Heller that the 2nd Amendment didn't protect the individual right to keep and bear arms? Some people made this argument, but they were wrong. The right has always belonged to the individual, it was merely recognized in Heller. Those people that were denied the right to own a firearm prior to the Heller ruling were in fact deprived of a fundamental right. I would argue that those who deprived the people of this or any other right should be charged with human rights violations.

I would argue that if the Heller ruling went the other way, that it would have been wrong. The court doesn't grant a fundamental right, it merely recognizes it. If the court fails to correctly recognize a right, it doesn't mean the right doesn't exist, it means that the court ruled incorrectly. How do we know what a right is, if the government or the courts are not the grantors of the right? It's because the people of the United States who created the government *demand* that the government recognize the right. The problem is, the majority of people allow their rights to be trampled on regularly. Unless there is significant public outrage, the lawyers will play their chess games in relative obscurity. The intent of this and many other of my posts is not to argue the legal chess game, but to remind people that "shall not be infringed" means exactly what it says, and that public outrage is necessary for the preservation of our rights.

I stand by my assertion that our constitutionally protected rights have been abused by government. I am hopeful that someone will be able to successfully make these arguments before the court, and restore the recognition of these rights.

With all due respect, I don't need to be a regulatory and insurance attorney to understand the intent of the bill of rights. While we need good lawyers to play chess and argue our rights in court, we also need the people to stand up and demand that our rights are respected. In many cases, the power of an outraged public is greater than that of the of the chess players or their arguments. The fact that MN didn't fall to the same wave of violations that NY, CO and CA did a year ago is testament to the power of an outraged people.

[jshuberg]

U.S. v. Burchard, 580 F.3d 341 (6th Cir., 2009

Thank you for the cite. To be honest I didn't think you'd find anything specific to marihuanna usage, so I stand corrected. This case didn't make the constitutional arguments I'd like to see someone argue, but it is a relevant case none the less.

I'm still hopeful that the abuse of "prohibited persons" be given the proper constitutional scrutiny. Declaring a non-violent marihuanna user, or a person late on their taxes, or who fails to pay parking tickets on time, etc. are prohibited from exercising a fundamental human right is such an obvious violation that allowing this to stand would essentially be a nullification of the right. All an abusive state would have to do would be to declare a broad enough range of behavior as resulting in "prohibited person" status to effectively eliminate the right from being exercised. The best way to solve this problem is the reintroduction of due process as a necessity prior to the removal of a right from an individual, in accordance with the intent of the 5th and 14th Amendments.

Until then, being a pothead and firearms owner are legally mutually exclusive activities. While this doesn't effect me at all, I understand that some people are quite upset about this, and I'll stand next to them and petition the government for redress of grievance. Just tell me where and when and I'll be there.

[Frank Ettin]

To support your Fifth Amendment argument you would need to find cases ruling that a mere desire or want is sufficient compulsion to support invoking the Fifth Amendment. Good luck with that.

Owning a firearm is not a "desire or want", it is a fundamental human right. Forcing a person to testify against himself in order to exercise a fundamental human right is an infringement. Any arguments to the contrary, whether supported by existing case law or not is simply contrived. It is an obvious infringement on it's face....

Then find a Supreme Court case supporting you. Whatever your beliefs or opinions might be, in the real world they aren't worth anything. The opinions of courts on matters of law affect the lives and property of real people in the real world. Your opinions and $2.00 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

...The government doesn't tell us what our rights are. The supreme court doesn't tell us what our rights are. Lawyers don't tell us what our rights are. We the people tell the government what our rights are. The protection of those rights were guaranteed against infringement in the bill of rights. And it's very likely that before the ink was dry certain people in our government began conceiving of ways that some of those rights could be circumvented with a rats nest of legalese, statute and case law designed to confuse the people into believing that infringement of their rights was in fact lawful...

Good, go with that and let us all know how far you actually get.

...I believe that this law is unconstitutional. Not because of some precedent that has been established, but because a persons ability to exercise a fundamental right is being curtailed, and that a person may be potentially be forced to incriminate himself in order to exercise that right....

But unless a court agrees, your belief will not keep you out of jail.

...Our current legal system is a caricature of it's original intent. Wickard v. Filburn was a fundamentally flawed ruling... it's absolutely wrong. The federal government was intended to be restricted in it's power. In fact a process as cumbersome as a constitutional amendment was intended to be required for the people to legally grant the government additional powers. The unfortunate reality is that government has presumed to steal additional powers that should have been relegated to the states or the people...

Your opinions are noted. However, the legal system is going on about its business without consideration of your opinions. So while you hold your opinions and beliefs the courts are deciding cases and the lives and futures of real people -- all your pretty opinions and beliefs notwithstanding.

...I stand by my assertion that our constitutionally protected rights have been abused by government. I am hopeful that someone will be able to successfully make these arguments before the court, and restore the recognition of these rights...

By all means stand by your beliefs. But in the meantime many very bright and able lawyers and legislative advocates are working to improve matters. We got the ruling we got in Heller and McDonald not by the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments, but by solid legal work by skilled and able lawyers who understand how things actually work.

...In many cases, the power of an outraged public is greater than that of the of the chess players or their arguments. ...

Really? Then show us specifically, and in detail, their actual successes. Let's see some evidence. As Carl Sagan said, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

[Frank Ettin]

These sorts of topics come up regularly in forums and often seem to get kind of muddled. Perhaps it's helpful to reflect that these topics actually raised several, distinct sorts of issues.

1. On one level, and it's the level lawyers, such as myself, are going to be most interested in, there's the question of what the law actually is. The central purpose here is to help people understand what the law is and how it will be applied so that they they can best have the option of conducting their affairs in ways that minimize the risk of violating the law. Violating the law can have some very undesirable consequences.
   
   
2. There's also the question of what the law should be. This raises issues of public policy and philosophy. Many of us in the gun community, and in the conservative/libertarian community are fairly unhappy with the way things are. Our system offers various opportunities to try to change the ways things are, and many of us are interested in exploring at least some of those ways with regards to certain issue. But we also need to realize that how we would prefer things to be does not change how things actually are at present.

[jshuberg]

Well lets see. How about the American Revolution, the Civil war, pretty much every military engagement in history. Without an outraged public, the vast majority would never have occurred. How about the battle of Athens, where WWII GIs took up arms against a corrupt local government and threw the bastards out? Perhaps these examples are too violent, too chest pounding for polite society and conversation. How about Rosa Parks? MLK? Ghandi and the like? Very impressive people for sure. However, without an army of outraged people, their individual efforts would have been thoroughly steamrolled over. The civil rights movement as a whole, the counter-culture movement of the late 60's and early 70's, they were able to forward an agenda that would have been a legal impossibility at the time, had it not been for the masses standing up for the cause. It's not always a positive thing though - OJ Simpson was acquitted because of an outraged people. George Zimmerman was indited after the decision was made not to prosecute because of obvious self defense. Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson have influenced multiple legal matters by leveraging the outrage of their organization members. In fact, I would submit that the majority of significant social or governmental change throughout history is driven not by lawyers, but by an outraged population.

Lawyers obviously play a very important role, but the blueprint for successful social, cultural, and governmental change has always required an outraged population as it's engine. If we want the full restoration of our fundamental rights, we simply can't leave it to the lawyers and hope it all goes well. People need to be aware that their rights are being trampled on. People need to be aware that the government has stolen from them. People need to know when laws violate their rights. Not for use as a justification for breaking the law, but to demand the law be changed and our rights be restored.

As I stated I'm not a lawyer, but I don't need to be to see a violation. Perhaps my arguments on exactly whats wrong and how to fix it are not the best legal arguments that can be made. I absolutely acknowledge that. That's not the purpose for my little rants on the forum though. While most members here are undoubtedly like-minded individuals when it comes to firearms rights, there are probably more lurkers than members here who may not have recognized that people are having their rights stripped from them from something other than going before a judge, and for something as trivial as not paying a fine on time. It's a dinner table conversation taking place on the internet. If my little rantings can help to motivate someone to show up at the next capitol hearing, or to donate a little money to one of the several organizations that fund the lawyers that play the chess game on our behalf, then it's worth my effort to rant. Either way, it costs me nothing other than a small amount of my time.

Thank you for helping to make it a longer and more interesting rant

[Frank Ettin]

Well lets see. How about the American Revolution, the Civil war, pretty much every military engagement in history. Without an outraged public, the vast majority would never have occurred. How about the battle of Athens, where WWII GIs took up arms against a corrupt local government and threw the bastards out? Perhaps these examples are too violent, too chest pounding for polite society and conversation. How about Rosa Parks? MLK? Ghandi and the like? Very impressive people for sure. However, without an army of outraged people, their individual efforts would have been thoroughly steamrolled over. The civil rights movement as a whole,...

You sure like to gloss over significant details. And the details can make all the difference.

1. Consider the American Revolution
   
   
   1. Historically revolution as a mechanism for fostering freedom has a really lousy track record.
      
      
   2. To illustrate that we of course have the French Revolution. We also have the Paris Commune of 1870. How about the Russian Revolution? The Chinese Revolution that gave us Mao, perhaps? How about the ouster of Basitsa in Cuba? Pol Pot in Cambodia? Anyone know what's happening in what used to be Burma? And let's not forget Iran. I'm not sure that things are all that swell in Egypt or Libya these days. Then there have been the various revolutions, often protracted, taking place with dismaying regularity in one third world country or another. The vast majority of revolutions wind up simply replacing one despot with another.
      
      
   3. The American Revolution was unique. Why?
      
      
      1. At the time of the Revolution each Colony was substantially self governing, at least with regard to internal matters. Each Colony had its own well developed administrative and governmental infrastructures. Many of the leaders of the Revolution were already active in local, political affairs. At the same time, our Revolution wasn't as much a revolution as it was ejecting an occupying force. Once the British were displaced, we were able to build on a solid foundation of already existing and functional public institutions. And to a large extent the folks who were running local affairs before the Revolution continued to do so after.
         
         
      2. Basically, the system wasn't torn down. The then existing system continued under new management. The once colonies continued as they had, just without oversight by the Crown; and through political process they agreed to loosely join together under the Articles of Confederation. When the Articles of Confederation proved unworkable, they were replaced byt the Constitution. That replacement was accomplished by political process, not by revolution.
   
   
2. How about Rosa Parks?
   
   Do you know the real story of Rosa Parks. I suspect not. But it's a good illustration of how effective civil disobedience works.
   
   
   1. Rosa Parks had a long history of being actively involved in the organized Civil Rights Movement:
      

      ... joining the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP in 1943, serving as the chapter's youth leader as well as secretary to NAACP President E.D. Nixon—a post she held until 1957...

      
      
      
   2. At the time of her arrest Mrs. Parks was an adviser to the NAACP.
      
      
   3. On 1 December 1955, Rosa Parks was the third African-American since March of that year to be arrested for violating the Montgomery bus segregation law. One was Claudette Colvin, a 15-year-old girl who was arrested some nine months earlier. E. D. Nixon decided that Claudette would be a poor "poster-child" for a protest because she was unmarried and pregnant.
      
      
   4. The night of Mrs. Parks' arrest, Jo Ann Robinson, head of the Women's Political Council, printed and circulated a flyer throughout Montgomery's black community starting the call for a boycott of Montgomery's city buses.
      
      
   5. Martin Luther King, Jr., as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association and pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, together with other Black community leaders, then organized the boycott of the Montgomery bus system. That boycott reduced Black ridership (the bulk of the bus system's paying customers) of Montgomery city buses by some 90% until December of 1956 when the Supreme Court ruled that the bus segregation laws of Montgomery, Alabama were unconstitutional (Gayle v. Browder, 352 U.S. 903 (1956)).
      
      
   6. A well orchestrated, well organized, non-violent, multilayered program reflecting good planning and political acumen leading to a successful conclusion.
   
   
3. And then there's the Civil Rights Movement
   
   
   1. The core and very effective part of the overall strategy of the Civil Rights Movement (referring to the struggle during the 1950s and 1960s for racial equality) was non-violent civil disobedience, winning wide and deep support for that cause.
      
      
   2. The acts of civil disobedience, involved very normal, benign, human acts: taking a seat on a bus for the ride home after a hard day at work; sitting at a lunch counter to have a meal; a child registering to attend school; registering to vote; voting; etc. These are normal, every day thing that White folks took for granted. And it became profoundly disturbing for many White to see other humans arrested for doing these normal, benign things simply because of the color of their skin.
      
      
   3. The Civil Rights Movement of the '50s was the culmination of 100+ years of abolitionist and civil rights activity. It had broad and deep support. The goals of the Civil Rights Movement were promoted regularly in sermons in churches and synagogues all across the nation. The Civil Rights Movement had charismatic leaders like Martin Luther King who could inspire the country.
      
      
   4. During the days of the Civil Rights Movement of the '50s and '60s, civil disobedience, as favorably reported by the mainstream media, and as favorably commented upon on college campuses and in sermons in houses of worship across the nation, helped generate great public sympathy for the cause. Whites showed sympathy for the plight of non-whites during the days of the Civil Rights Movement and joined with non-whites in marches and demonstrations. That sympathy helped lead to the election of pro-civil rights legislators and executives. And that led to the enactment of pro-civil rights laws.
   
   
4. Outrage by itself doesn't help anything. The energy needs to be properly harnessed and directed in manners well calculated to be effective for the intended purpose.
   
   
5. Details matter. Facts matter. Leadership matters. And a sound understanding of how things work matters.

[steve4102]

Possession of Medical Marijuana?

The ATF is clear about the "Usage" of "Controlled Substances" specifically Medical Marijuana, but what about possession?

What are the Federal laws regarding firearms and those that Grow, Wholesale and Retail Medical Marijuana. I know the Feds can come in and confiscate or destroy the pot plants, but what about firearms possession?

I'm sure that after MN passes their Medical Marijuana laws, there will be a whole host of Private and Commercial Greenhouses being turned into Medical Marijuana farms. Do these growers and distributors fall under the same or similar Federal laws classifying them as "Prohibited Persons" even if they are not actual "Users"?

[Hmac]

In states where legal, physicians don't actually "prescribe" marijuana. IF the doctor is "certified" by the state to do so, he/she can issue a "certificate of eligibility" to the patient. Specific state laws then exempt that patient with that doctor-issued certificate from possession laws. The physician is doing nothing illegal because he/she isn't prescribing under their DEA license. The Controlled Substances Act proscribes manufacture, importation, possession, use and distribution of Schedule I drugs, so the patient is violating Federal law, but not the doctor.

[jshuberg]

Yes, leadership matters. But without public outrage those individuals credited with great accomplishments would have been lost to obscurity.

Details do matter, but a person can also become so lost in the details as to lose track of the main objective. The people demanded that the the government respect their rights during it's creation. The bill of rights was created specifically so that the average person knew what his rights were, so that he could take comfort that government would respect them, and so he could identify when an infringement occurred and seek a redress of grievance. It was written not in the legalese of the day, but in the common language of the day so the common man could understand what his recognized rights were. To your point there have been many different leaders (some of them lawyers) that have spearheaded the fight for our rights. Professor Joe Olson is one individual who immediately comes to mind. You'll note that his organization, GOCRA, doesn't send out legal briefs it's membership. Neither does the NRA, or any other organization spearheading the fight for our rights. They point out to their membership that an infringement of our rights has occurred, in the common language of the day. The details of the chess game only really matters to the chess players. The rest of us are mainly concerned simply with the outcome of the game. The details are often at best a curiosity, and at worst nauseating sausage making.

When we look at the wording of the 2nd, 5th and 14th Amendments, we can immediately identify that these rights have been circumvented by 200+ years of chess playing. A child could recognize this, but an army of lawyers have so overcomplicated the issues involved that the forest has become all but lost to the trees.

It's likely that my amateur legal arguments would be insufficient to stand up in court, since I have no training in making legal arguments. That doesn't stop me or anyone else from identifying that an ongoing infringement has occurred. If the chess board has been so thoroughly corrupted by bad case law over the centuries that it's simply not possible to restore the full recognition of our rights, then we simply need a new damn chess board. One that hasn't been rigged against the rights of the people.

So what are your arguments? What's you're angle? I presume that you're "on our side", but so far all we've heard from you is how my observation that the government is violating the rights of the people is wrong. Do you believe that our rights are being infringed at all? If you were given the opportunity to argue before the supreme court for the rights that the government has already promised to recognize, and then subsequently trampled on, what would those arguments be?

[Frank Ettin]

Possession of Medical Marijuana?

....I'm sure that after MN passes their Medical Marijuana laws, there will be a whole host of Private and Commercial Greenhouses being turned into Medical Marijuana farms. Do these growers and distributors fall under the same or similar Federal laws classifying them as "Prohibited Persons" even if they are not actual "Users"?

While they would be violating federal laws regarding controlled substances, I don't think they'd necessarily be prohibited persons under the Gun Control Act. ATF regulations define "unlawful user of a controlled substance" as follows (27 CFR 478.11):

Unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance. A person who uses a controlled substance and has lost the power of self-control with reference to the use of controlled substance; and any person who is a current user of a controlled substance in a manner other than as prescribed by a licensed physician. Such use is not limited to the use of drugs on a particular day, or within a matter of days or weeks before, but rather that the unlawful use has occurred recently enough to indicate that the individual is actively engaged in such conduct. A person may be an unlawful current user of a controlled substance even though the substance is not being used at the precise time the person seeks to acquire a firearm or receives or possesses a firearm. An inference of current use may be drawn from evidence of a recent use or possession of a controlled substance or a pattern of use or possession that reasonably covers the present time, e.g., a conviction for use or possession of a controlled substance within the past year; multiple arrests for such offenses within the past 5 years if the most recent arrest occurred within the past year; or persons found through a drug test to use a controlled substance unlawfully, provided that the test was administered within the past year. For a current or former member of the Armed Forces, an inference of current use may be drawn from recent disciplinary or other administrative action based on confirmed drug use, e.g., court-martial conviction, nonjudicial punishment, or an administrative discharge based on drug use or drug rehabilitation failure.

In any case, the federal government has been enforcing federal law against growers and dealers in States in which medical marijuana is legal under state law --

• "Obama Explains Increasing Medical Marijuana Crackdowns, Raids..."
  
  
• "U.S. raids L.A. marijuana shops..."
  
  
• "Southern Oregon medical marijuana farm raided by federal drug agents..."
  
• "2 Anaheim pot shops raided,..."
  
  
• "Sacramento marijuana dispensary latest target of federal crackdown"