2nd Amendment Enthusiasts Outraged After State Demands Citizens Trade in Guns for Pot
Starting later this year, residents of Pennsylvania will be allowed to seek out medicinal marijuana products as a treatment option for 17 health conditions.
There’s just one catch: Any patient who also happens to be a proud gun owner must first relinquish or trade in his weapons before receiving his medicine, according to a statement from the Pennsylvania State Police.
“It’s unlawful to keep possession of firearms obtained prior to registering (for medicinal marijuana),” said state police spokesman Ryan Tarkowski, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
“The Pennsylvania State Police is not in the business of offering legal advice, but it might be a good idea to contact an attorney about how best to dispose of their firearms,” he added.
I disagree. If anything, they should contact an attorney to determine how to best fight back against this sort of unacceptable tyranny.
But it gets worse. Firearms dealers in Pennsylvania must conduct a background check on every customer, and if the check shows that a customer holds a medicinal marijuana card, it’s a not going to happen.
“If you’re a card holder, you’ll be flagged,” Tarkowski explained.
The same thing will occur if, when filling out the Justice Department’s required “firearms transaction record” Form 4473, a customer answers “yes” to being “an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana.”
“It’s game over if you check ‘yes,'” said Jim Benoit, the owner of a local firearms store. “I can thank you for coming by, but I’ll have to tell you I can’t sell you this gun.”
According to gun owner and criminal defense attorney Patrick Nightingale, the problem lies with the contradiction between state and federal law, the latter of which prohibits the ownership or consumption of any marijuana product.
“Under Pennsylvania state law, medical marijuana is legal and is no bar to gun ownership,” notes local station KDKA. “But under federal law, (marijuana) is illegal and could keep you from owning a firearm.”
The same thing happened in Hawaii last year, when the Honolulu Police Department sent out a letter ordering locals who consume medical marijuana to turn in their weapons within 30 days.
The department saw the error of its ways though, and later issued an apology for the letter, though it pledged to “continue to deny new gun permits for cannabis cardholders,” as reported by Pacific Business News.
Speaking with the Post-Gazette, lawyer Andrew Sacks, the co-chairman of the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Medical Marijuana and Hemp Law Committee, expressed his outrage over this sort of foolishness.
“It’s hypocritical,” he said. “You can be an opioid addict, or buy a bottle of rum, drink it and go to a store and buy one. But a person who is registered as a medical marijuana patient in Pennsylvania, and has a very small dosage of THC, can’t own a gun to protect themselves or hunt.”
It does indeed make no sense, though on that note, when do overburdensome government rules and regulations ever make sense?
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