Judge Rebukes 8th Circuit Precedent in Drug User’s Firearm Case

A dissenting Eighth Circuit judge chided the court’s decision to vacate a cannabis user’s firearm possession conviction, saying the circuit’s precedent has caused it “paralysis.”

Sufficient historical analogues exist to show the US has traditionally disarmed and even jailed habitual substance abusers, which supports Alexander Wesley Ledvina’s conviction, Chief Judge Steven M. Colloton said in an opinion partially dissenting from the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

The circuit precedent cited to support the majority’s decision to vacate and remand Ledvina’s conviction misses ample historical evidence of firearm possession bans for “persons who present a special danger of ...