The marijuana lobby is abuzz with excitement today after the 11th Circuit Court reversed a district court’s ruling in favor of a motion to dismiss regarding the appellants’ (in this case marijuana users) claims that the federal statute prohibiting marijuana users from owning guns was unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.
In simple terms, the lower court ruled the appellants’ arguments, even if they were entirely true, did not entitle them to relief. The 11th Circuit disagreed, vacated that ruling, and returned this case to be debated by the district court once again on its merits.
In short, they didn’t decide anything substantively in favor of the appellants other than that their arguments deserve a full argument before the district courts.
Myths in response to this news abound.
Did the court actually say that the appellants “cannot be fairly compared with felons or those the government deems dangerous?”
If you’re skeptical, you’re right. The judicial standard for a motion to dismiss requires judges to look at the complaint submitted by the appellants in the light most favorable to them.
The court notes this in the immediately preceding sentence and clause before the selective clipping from the Firearms Policy Coalition. In full, it should read: “[the district court] did not view the [complaint’s] allegations in the light most favorable to Appellants. When viewed in this light, Appellants cannot be fairly…”
Far from asserting that marijuana users cannot be fairly compared with felons or those the government deems dangerous, the court was merely stating this would be the logical view if one were to accept the appellants’ arguments in the most favorable light.
Of course, the broader myth here is that the decision indicates what the court may feel about the government deeming marijuana users as potentially dangerous when owning firearms.
This motion to dismiss standard should be understood in reading the rest of the opinion, which—again—does not purport to imply the court’s views on the merits of these arguments. This is an early stage in the process of a case, and it isn’t all that surprising that the appellants survived a motion to dismiss. Many cases do not survive because their pleadings do not support a claim for which they may be entitled to relief. The plaintiffs here have high-powered attorneys and a lot of money, likely because they are backed by the marijuana industry. It remains to be seen if their arguments hold enough muster.
One thing is certain, though. This ruling means nothing in terms of their odds of success.