WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – You can have your legal weed or you can have your legal guns—but you can’t have both, at least according to the federal government as some advocates saying their right to bear arms is being violated for simply taking advantage of legal marijuana use in their state.
Kim Petters served in the Air Force for ten years and deployed overseas, now retired in Delaware, she legally uses medical marijuana to help with PTSD.
Petters also wants to buy a gun. But that’s something she can’t do.
“I follow doctors orders and state laws,” Kim Petters said.
“Cannabis is the only medication in the entire U.S. that makes you choose between medicine or second amendment rights, and that’s just not fair,” Petters said.
Federal law still considers marijuana—even legalized by a state—a controlled substance and anybody applying to buy a gun have to say if they’re a user on the ATF’s background check form.
“So if I lie on that form, and say no, I’ve created an entirely different felony, which could land me five years in jail. But if I say yes, I’m denied purchase,” Petters said.
Recently, the ATF even added a warning section to that form…reminding potential buyers of federal law.
The heritage foundation’s Amy Swearer, a second amendment attorney, says lawsuits over this have never made it past lower-level courts because federal law supersedes state law.
“I think ultimately it’s going to come down to a change in federal policy,” Swearer said.
So far, Petters says she’s chosen the cannabis over a gun but hopes someday, she and so many other Americans won’t have to make that choice.
“I want the right to feel safe, I want the right to defend myself, I want my second amendment rights that I fought for,” Petters said.
