Pennsylvania wants to strip your constitutional rights for life over a misdemeanor drug conviction — and Gun Owners of America just filed a federal lawsuit to stop it.
The stakes are straightforward: if the state can permanently disarm you over a minor drug offense from decades ago, the Second Amendment means nothing. Craig Phillips, the named plaintiff, was convicted of a misdemeanor marijuana possession charge in 1994. Thirty years later, with a clean record and multiple successful background checks for firearm purchases, Pennsylvania still denies him a License to Carry Firearms. That's not public safety. That's a permanent punishment masquerading as regulation.
Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation filed suit Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, arguing the lifetime ban violates the Second Amendment. Their complaint leans hard on the Supreme Court's unanimous June 18 ruling in Hemani v. United States, which tossed a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) — the federal drug-user firearm prohibition — on constitutional grounds.
The Hemani decision cut to the heart of the matter. The federal government tried to justify disarming drug users by pointing to historical
