Federal Appeals Court Upholds Constitutionality of Gun Bans for Drug Users

The court majority says history supports disarming drug users while a dissenting judge said the ruling sets a low bar and flouts common sense.

A person holds a gun in an undated file photograph. Scott Olson/Getty Images

A federal appeals court has ruled that a law barring people who regularly use illegal drugs from owning guns is constitutional because of longstanding concerns about public safety, but ordered a lower court to take a closer look at whether disarming a Pennsylvania man who smokes marijuana violates his individual Second Amendment rights.

In a split opinion issued on July 14, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in a case involving Erik Harris, who was charged under federal statutes after buying three handguns while regularly using marijuana.

Harris, then 21, falsely stated on federal firearms purchase forms that he was not an unlawful user of marijuana, according to court filings. Days after buying one of the guns, he went out drinking and after getting high, lost the firearm while partying and later reported it stolen.

“When Harris’s missing gun turned up in a felon’s hands, officers called Harris in for questioning,” the opinion states. “There, he admitted that he smoked marijuana regularly, including earlier that same day.”

Harris pleaded guilty to possessing firearms as an unlawful drug user and making false statements on firearms forms but preserved his right to appeal. He argued that the gun ban for unlawful drug users violates the Second Amendment and is unconstitutionally vague.

Writing for the majority, Judge Stephanos Bibas held that history and tradition support laws disarming people whose drug use would likely cause them to pose a danger if armed. “Guns and drugs can be a lethal cocktail,” Bibas wrote, while citing foundation-era laws that allowed authorities to disarm people who were dangerously drunk or mentally ill, finding them relevant historical analogues for modern restrictions.

However, the court found there were not enough factual findings to decide whether Harris’s own marijuana use made him dangerous enough to justify stripping him of his Second Amendment rights. The court vacated his conviction in part and remanded the case for further proceedings.

“Today, we hold that history and tradition justify ... restrictions on those who pose a special danger of misusing firearms because they frequently use drugs,” the opinion reads. “But we lack enough facts to tell whether the law’s restrictions are constitutional as applied to Harris.”

Judge Thomas Ambro dissented, criticizing the majority’s approach. He argued that the decision “sets the threshold for potential dangerousness too low” and warned that it could sweep too broadly, capturing even moderate or occasional substance users.

“The majority leaves us with an amorphous holding that flouts precedent, defies common sense, and creates a circuit split,” Ambro wrote. “In the majority’s view, if you drink, then you can be disarmed. That was certainly not the historical tradition at the Founding.”

In legal briefs, Harris’s lawyers argued that there is no Founding-era tradition of disarming individuals merely for using intoxicants and that Harris, as an adult citizen using marijuana recreationally, should fall within the Second Amendment’s protections. They also contend that the term “unlawful user” in the relevant legal statutes is unconstitutionally vague because it fails to define how frequent or recent drug use must be to justify the firearms ban.

“Absent any showing of a historical tradition of disarming users of intoxicants from possessing firearms even in the home for self-defense, this regulation infringes upon individual Second Amendment rights and is unconstitutional,” Harris’s attorneys wrote.

The Third Circuit’s ruling sends Harris’s case back to the district court to determine whether prosecutors can show that Harris’s marijuana use makes him dangerous enough to justify the firearms prohibition under the legal framework clarified by the U.S. Supreme Court in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

Bruen was a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2022 that reshaped how courts evaluate gun laws. The high court held that when a person’s conduct falls within the Second Amendment’s text, the government must show that any restriction is consistent with the nation’s “historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

Since the Bruen decision, courts across the country have grappled with how to apply that historical test, leading to renewed challenges to laws that disarm certain categories of people, including drug users, felons, and others deemed potentially dangerous.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Harris’s attorneys with a request for comment on the Third Circuit’s decision.