This week in our short recap, Oklahoma Supreme Court has denied Yes to 820’s petition that the state be forced to put the ballot initiative on the upcoming November 2022 ballot. In a battle between the DOJ and the Florida Ag Commissioner Nikki Fried, the DOJ has likened federally illegal marijuana users to domestic violence perpetrators saying they cannot exercise proper judgement and should not have firearms rights. Audio player below for those on the go.
Oklahoma Supreme Court decided that Question 820 will not be on the November 2022 ballot.
A lawsuit which sought to compel the state to put the question on the ballot in November, has not been fully resolved. This has prompted the court to deny the request. The issue at hand was that despite the initiative being turned in, in a timely manner, the review of signatures was taken out beyond the deadlines required to get the measure on the ballot. The campaign Yes on 820 filed the suit.
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After the decision the campaign director Michelle Tilley stated, “Of course we are disappointed that the Court did not grant our request to place SQ 820 on the November 2022 ballot,”
The justices wrote in a 9-0 opinion that the petitioners “cannot show that they have a clear right to get SQ820 on the November 2022 general election ballot” given the conditions of time constraints and resolutions still required.
The court dismissed two separate legal challenges to signature certification, clearing the initiative’s path for a vote during the state’s next general or special election. The item could appear on 2023 or 2024 Oklahoma ballot.
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The Department of Justice recently stated in a court filing that marijuana users are dangerous like domestic violence criminals.
The filing stated that, “Marijuana users also engage in criminal activity that renders firearms possession dangerous, albeit for different reasons (i.e., the propensity for violence for domestic violence misdemeanants, and the impairing effects of marijuana for marijuana users),”
The filing is a DOJ response to a lawsuit from Florida’s agriculture commissioner Nikki Fried. Fried alleges that federal policy outlawing medical cannabis patients from the right to own firearms is unconstitutional. The Department of Justice is also requesting that the court dismiss the case or issue a summary judgment.
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A recent SCOTUS ruling from earlier this year creating a higher standard for jurisdictions seeking to impose restrictions on gun rights, states that any such restrictions must be consistent with the historical context of the Second Amendment’s original 1791 ratification.
So now the Florida Department of Ag is asking if there is a historical precedent to justify the current federal policy prohibiting people admitting to using cannabis in a background check from purchasing or possessing firearms?
Initially in August the Biden Administration DOJ stated that in a filing that it would be too “dangerous to trust regular marijuana users to exercise sound judgment” with firearms.
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The filing also states that the plaintiffs lack standing for their Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment claims because they do not allege that DOJ expenditures caused them injury. And that since they do not allege that absent unspecified DOJ spending, stores that denied the plaintiffs gun sales, would have committed a federal crime. Therefore, they fail to allege that their claimed Rohrabacher-Farr injury is “fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and not the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court.”
Basically the DOJ is stating that because the state of Florida has not forced the gun retailers to sell to these individuals despite their usage to then have the DOJ expend funds to either take away the firearms or punish the firearm retailers, that neither the state or individuals have been injured by the state which they view is a requirement to file suit against the DoJ.
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