Medical marijuana patients cannot purchase firearms or ammunition, says federal law

By Lindsay Knowles - MISSISSIPPI (WLOX) - Across Mississippi, thousands of people with health conditions are hoping to obtain medical marijuana once it becomes available later this year.

On Wednesday, the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Act was made official. With it, comes several policies and regulations put in place by state lawmakers. However, some regulations are out of their hands.

Because medical marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, anyone with a license to use cannabis is not allowed to possess or purchase firearms and ammunition. That law is regardless of whether or not an individual state has legalized the substance.

The Mississippi Medical Cannabis Act, however, says that no state or local agency will prevent medical marijuana patients from obtaining or possessing a firearm, stating:

“A registered qualifying patient or registered designated caregiver shall not be denied the right to own, purchase or possess a firearm, firearm accessory or ammunition based solely on his or her status as a registered qualifying patient or registered designated caregiver. No state or local agency, municipal or county governing authority shall restrict, revoke, suspend or otherwise infringe upon the right of a person to own, purchase or possess a firearm, firearm accessory or ammunition or any related firearms license or certification based solely on his or her status as a registered qualifying patient or registered designated caregiver.”

According to federal law, it is unlawful for an unauthorized user of a controlled substance, including marijuana, to possess, ship, transport, or receive firearms or ammunition. It is also unlawful to sell a firearm or ammunition to any person if the seller knows or has reasonable cause to believe that such person is an unlawful user of marijuana. In this context, unlawful use is based on federal law so all users of marijuana are considered unlawful.

In a 2011 open letter from the ATF regarding Federal Firearms Licenses, the federal agency addressed medical marijuana directly. Referencing 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3), the ATF said anyone attempting to purchase a firearm should answer “yes” to question 11.e on the Firearms Transaction Record Revisions form, known as Form 4473.

In order to purchase a firearm from a federally licensed dealer, an individual must complete Form 4473. That form also includes a warning that the recreational and medical use of cannabis under state law does not alter the federal Controlled Substances Act which makes it illegal to possess, manufacture, or distribute marijuana. It is a separate crime to lie about your marijuana use on the form. You can also be subject to heightened criminal penalties if found in possession of a firearm and marijuana at the same time.

For those who are able to get a medical marijuana card, it may be possible for law enforcement to obtain information from a patient registry or state database. According to Section 12 of the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Act, a patient verification system must be in place that allow a medical cannabis establishments to share a patient’s registry identification numbers with law enforcement personnel.

https://www.wlox.com/2022/02/03/medical-marijuana-patients-cant-purchase-firearms-or-ammunition-says-federal-law/



IMHO, I feel that the Sip is approaching the possession of firearm in the correct/logical manner in regards to medical marijuana. I can only hope Alabama will use the same common sense in the develope of their State law this year.

Oklahoma was in this situation briefly.. they fixed it...

MACS, did you ever process anyone in jail that committed a violant, aggressive act that was high only on pot?

Like what…..assaulting a bag of Doritos?

Not that I can recall. Very rarely did we book pot smokers... and only then when they got caught in a big grow operation. Mostly crazy asses on meth, PCP, or some other cocktail of drugs... and drunks that got caught driving, or were in fights with other drunks.

Drunks... wanted to fight or cried like little girls. Dopers... batcrap crazy and you had to watch them real close. The switch on them flipped... they'd be talking and answering questions during booking and then *BAM* out of nowhere they're talking nonsense and being combative.

Potheads... answer your questions, obey your commands, and get through the process.

Can see the long game by the fed…
-Let all the states individually pass medical use.
-Wait for a period of time.
-Sweep up all the names of people registered for medical and conceal and carry.
-Swoop in, make arrests, take the guns, make ‘em felons.

20-30% of the electorate lose guns and voting rights, more of them conservative.
Boon for the Dems.

For #'s 11 & 12

Democrats Pushing Gun Registry As Precursor To Gun Ban

By RealClearWire - Federal law explicitly prohibits the creation of a federal firearm registry, but the Biden administration is making one anyway. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) has collected nearly one billion firearm purchase records. The government has now created a searchable digital database containing 866 million of these transactions, including some 54 million made in 2021 alone.

This massive data collection effort encompasses information on all guns sold by licensed gun dealers, and on all legal gun transfers in states with so-called universal background checks. So, federal officials will have the name of everyone who legally obtained a gun. Now, President Biden wants to make universal background checks nationwide so he can have an even more complete registration list.

According to a Rasmussen Reports survey, Democrats support the idea by a 2-1 ratio, while Republicans oppose it by a similar margin. Two-thirds of Republicans believe the policy will lead to gun confiscation, and even 40% of Democrats believe the same. Confiscating legally owned firearms, it seems, is not merely a right-wing conspiracy theory.

Similarly, a recent Gallup poll shows that 40% of Democrats want a complete ban on civilian ownership of handguns. Countries such as Canada, the U.K., and Australia aren’t the only ones to use registration to ban and confiscate guns. California, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. have also used registration to know who legally owned different types of guns before banning them.

Conducting background checks to see if someone can legally buy a gun is different from the government keeping a searchable record of those who own guns. Indeed, federal law has always required that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System erase background check information within 24 hours of its completion.

Gun control activists push for registration as a way to solve crime. In theory, if criminals leave registered guns at a crime scene, they can then be traced back to the perpetrator. But in real life, a gun is usually left at the scene of a crime only when the gunman has been seriously injured or killed. Also, guns used in crimes are rarely registered. In the exceedingly unusual instances that they are, they aren’t registered to the person who committed the crime. However, with both the criminal and weapon present at the scene, police can solve these crimes even without registration.

In a 2001 lawsuit, the Pennsylvania state police could not identify any crimes solved by their registration system from 1901 to 2001; however they did claim that it had “assisted” in a total of four cases, for which they could provide no details.

In a 2013 deposition for District of Columbia v. Heller II, the plaintiffs recorded that the Washington, D.C. police chief

could not “recall any specific instance where registration records were used to determine who committed a crime, except for possession offenses.”

During testimony before the Hawaii State Senate in 2000, Honolulu’s police chief stated that he couldn’t find any crimes that had been solved due to registration and licensing. The chief also said that his officers devoted about 50,000 hours to registering and licensing guns each year. This is time that could have been spent on traditional, time-tested law enforcement activities.

New York and Maryland spent tens of millions of dollars putting together a computer database on all new guns sold in the past 15 years, even recording the ballistic fingerprint of each gun. But even these states, which strongly favor gun control, eventually abolished their systems because they never solved a single crime.

In 2010, Canada conducted a detailed examination of its program. It found that, from 2003 to 2009, 1,314 out of 4,257 Canadian homicides involved firearms. Of the identified weapons, about three-quarters were not registered. Among registered weapons, the registered owner was rarely the person accused of the homicide. In just 62 cases – only 4.7 percent of all firearm homicides – was the gun registered to the accused, and an unknown number of these homicide cases involve instances of self-defense. But the Royal Canadian Mounted Police failed to identify any cases where registration was integral to solving the crime.

Why do Democrats keep pushing a policy that costs so much and has no crime-reducing benefits? With so many Democrat voters supporting complete gun bans, many Republicans and Democrats believe that the registry is designed to pave the way for a ban on guns.

Lott is the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author of “Gun Control Myths.” Until January 2021, Lott was the senior adviser for research and statistics at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy.

What happened to law abiding outdoors hunter and sportsman's rights under the second amendment?