Customers shop for handguns at the Des Moines Fairgrounds Gun Show at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S. March 11, 2023.
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File PhotoAug 9 (Reuters) - A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that a decades-old law prohibiting users of illegal drugs from owning firearms was unconstitutional as applied to the case of a marijuana user, the latest fallout from a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that expanded gun rights.
Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the federal law violated a Mississippi man's right to "keep and bear arms" under the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration did not administer a drug test, though Daniels admitted he sometimes smoked marijuana, which federal law prohibits.
While his case was pending, the conservative-majority Supreme Court in June 2022 declared for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.
Persons:
Jonathan Ernst, Patrick Daniels, Daniels, Jerry Smith, Ronald Reagan, Stephen Higginson, Barack Obama, Nate Raymond, Shri Navaratnam
Organizations:
Des Moines, Iowa State Fairgrounds, REUTERS, U.S, Supreme, Circuit, Appeals, U.S . Drug, Administration, New York, Thomson
Locations:
Des Moines , Iowa, U.S, New Orleans, Mississippi, Boston