Hunter Biden Lawyer Wants Gun Charges Dismissed, Highlighting Cannabis And Firearms Controversy

Hunter Biden’s lawyers filed a motion Monday to dismiss a case against him over gun possession charges, in which they used a cannabis connection to argue discriminatory enforcement of the law.

In June, Biden was the subject of a Just Department investigation examining his gun possession in 2018, at the time when he was using illicit drugs.

Biden's attorneys argue that the gun charges violate the Second Amendment and represent a politically motivated prosecution over a law that is seldom enforced, barring people who use currently illicit drugs from buying or possessing firearms, writes Marijuana Moment.

“The accuracy of Special Counsel Weiss’s alleged acknowledgment that an ordinary citizen

 would not be prosecuted for this offense is borne out by DOJ’s policy and statistical evidence,” the motion reads. “Sections 922(g)(3) is very broad (unconstitutionally so), covering millions (if not tens of millions)of gun owners who use substances controlled under federal law, including marijuana, even if those drugs are legal at the state level.91 Yet they are almost never used. In years 2008–2017, for example, of the 132,464 criminal prosecutions under federal gun statutes, only 1.8% were brought under Section 922(g)(3).92.”

Marijuana And Guns…A Complex Issue

The question of whether it is unconstitutional to ban marijuana users from possessing firearms has been raised and debated in court on a regular basis over the last several of years. A federal appeals court ruled in August that the ban preventing people who use marijuana from possessing firearms is unconstitutional. 

Meanwhile, attorneys representing the Justice Department filed a brief in November with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit arguing that the prohibition on firearms for marijuana users is reasonable, citing historical parallels to limitations placed on the mentally ill and those with chronic alcohol problems during the era when the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791. 

According to a 2019 FBI memo that was recently brought to light by the New York Times, medical marijuana growers and caregivers are permitted to own guns, but patients are not.

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