One Reason Why

Wednesday 27 March 2013 - Filed under Uncategorized

Here is one reason why we need the feds to ease up on pot law before it can become a non-issue in states which already allow it (for whatever reason): people who have legal medical marijuana and a legally owned firearm being arrested for federal firearm crimes. Debra J Saunders of SFGate:

Monday I came across a U.S. Sentencing Commission report that looked at federal offenders serving sentence enhancements for committing a crime with a gun present: 65 percent served five years for having a gun while committing a federal crime, 23 percent served seven years for brandishing a gun, and nine percent served ten years for firing a gun or carrying assault weapons or other proscribed firearms. It’s possible that in some of those 65 percent of cases, the guns weren’t part of the crime, but the crime was owning a gun while possessing a controlled substance. Which brought to mind the 55-year sentence meted out to Weldon Angelos, which the sentencing judge himself called “unjust, cruel, and even irrational.”

The message for Californians who use medical marijuana should be pretty clear. The federal government may go after you for using marijuana, and the penalty can be harsh if you possess both legal (in California) medical marijuana and a lawfully-owned gun.

Simply exercising one’s 2A right owning a gun and possessing marijuana, even legal marijuana, runs afoul of federal law, and carries stiff MANDATORY minimum sentencing requirements. As long as there are federal laws against marijuana, states cannot truly be free to legalize without still putting the residents of their state at risk of arrest and imprisonment. Fortunately it seems that some relief has been offered. Mike Riggs at Reason:

You may have heard recently that the number of people under correctional supervision in the U.S. has been steadily falling over the last few years–from 7.2 million in 2008, to 6.97 million in 2011. While that’s true, it’s also true that the decline is happening exclusuvely at the state and local levels. The federal prison system has only grown since 2008. Federal detention facilities are currently at 139 percent capacity, and, absent any reforms of federal mandatory minimum laws, are expected to grow indefinitely. Enter Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), and the “Justice Safety Valve Act of 2013,” which was introduced today.

Here’s why this bill is important: A guy–let’s call him Weldon–sells pot to a government informant, who notices that Weldon has a gun strapped to his ankle. The next time the informant buys pot from Weldon, he notices a gun in Weldon’s car. When police move in to arrest Weldon, they find guns in his house. Weldon has never fired these guns, never used them to coerce anyone. He has, however, sold pot three times* while in possession of a firearm, so prosecutors charge Weldon with “multiple counts of possession of a gun during a drug trafficking offense.” He is convicted. What do you think Weldon’s sentence is? Ten years? Twenty years? Try 55 years–five for the first gun-related offense, and 25 for the second and third. That’s the mandatory minimum federal sentence for Weldon’s charges, meaning the judge who sentenced him could not sentence him to less time–only more.

Though the bill is not perfect (what bill is?), it should offer a viable alternative to the current draconian system of mandatory minimum sentencing requirements which overwhelmingly affect minorities, and ruin the lives of everyone they affect. No one should go to jail for pot ever. It’s immoral to jail someone for putting something in their body that affects no one else. That aside, no one should go to for legally possessing pot in accordance with state law and possessing a firearm by right.

2013-03-27  »  madlibertarianguy