ATF Reaffirms No 2A Rights for Drug Users, Bringing Spotlight Back on Hunter Biden’s Purported Gun Crime

US President Joe Biden, with son Hunter Biden, arrives at Hancock Field Air National Guard
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
AWR Hawkins

The spotlight is on Hunter Biden’s purported crime again after the ATF’s St. Paul office reaffirmed the agency’s position that state laws legalizing the recreational use of certain drugs do not remove gun prohibitions against the users of said drugs as long as federal law continues to identify the drugs as illegal.

Breitbart News reported that the ATF’s St. Paul office responded to Minnesota’s legalization of marijuana for recreational use by tweeting: “Regardless of the recent changes in Minnesota law related to marijuana, an individual who is a current user of marijuana is prohibited from shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing firearms or ammunition.”

Jeff Reed, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the ATF’s St. Paul field office, noted, “Until marijuana is legalized federally, firearms owners and possessors should be mindful that it remains federally illegal to mix marijuana with firearms and ammunition. As regulators of the firearms industry and enforcers of firearms laws, we felt it was important to remind Minnesotans of this distinction as the marijuana laws adjust here in the State of Minnesota.”

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A May 30, 2023, letter from the ATF made clear the prohibitions were not simply in light of marijuana use but the use of or addiction to any drug categorized as a “controlled substance.”

The ATF noted, “The federal Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibits any person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance as defined by the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 from shipping, transporting, receiving, or possessing firearms or ammunition.”

On March 25, 2021, Breitbart News noted Hunter Biden may have committed a felony when purchasing a gun in 2018, purportedly lying about his history of drug use on ATF Form 4473.

Form 4473 is a form used in the background check process for a firearm purchase.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010. and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

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