ATF Proposes Tightening Definition of Unlawful Drug User

It ought to take multiple occasion of drug use to bar someone from proudly owning weapons.

That’s the primary takeaway from a brand new Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) rulemaking proposal. On Tuesday, the company posted the rule on the Federal Register. In it, ATF seeks to redefine what constitutes an illegal drug consumer for the aim of the Gun Management Act.

“Not solely have court docket choices over the previous 25 years constantly interpreted the statute to not embrace single-use inferences and to relaxation on common use or a sample of use, however ATF has additionally been deciphering the statute that approach for many single-use denials for greater than a decade and has modified its referral practices accordingly,” Appearing Director Daniel Driscoll wrote within the proposal. “This rule informs the general public about ATF’s present view of how the statutory time period ‘illegal consumer of or hooked on a managed substance’ must be construed and clarifies how the Division intends to implement it within the context of firearm denials.”

The proposal would considerably change how federal gun and drug legal guidelines are enforced. It might impression 1000’s of potential gun patrons who’ve been barred from buying by the ATF’s present coverage. It might additionally impression the upcoming Second Modification problem to the drug consumer prohibition, which the Supreme Courtroom will hear oral arguments in later this 12 months.

Though, the ATF additionally cautioned that case might impression the rule as properly.

“ATF might reassess the definition of illegal consumer in a separate discover of proposed rulemaking after the pending case United States v. Hemani concludes on the Supreme Courtroom and contemplating any public feedback in response to this IFR, or it could make amendments in a last rule based mostly on this interim one,” Driscoll stated. “Within the meantime, any faulty denials based mostly on the examples within the present definition will stop.”

The brand new rule tightens the requirement for the way a lot proof is required to determine that someone is an illegal consumer of medicine. It establishes that multiple incident of drug use is required. As a substitute, the prohibition would require a number of situations of illicit drug use inside a interval near the acquisition or possession of a gun.

“Eradicating the inference examples will assist scale back confusion for NICS determinations, will forestall faulty NICS denials for individuals possessing firearms, and can higher align ATF’s laws with the very best interpretation of part 922(g)(3),” the company wrote. “Future part 922(g)(3) NICS determinations that deny firearm transactions, and future ATF enforcement choices, will subsequently require proof of normal and up to date use.”

ATF argued the change is required in an effort to align its regulation with how federal courts have interpreted the federal drug consumer gun ban.

“[C]ourt choices have continued to emphasise the ingredient of ordinary or common use,” Driscoll wrote. “Between 2019 and 2025, for instance, the Fourth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Tenth Circuits constantly discovered that the federal government should show some variation of the idea ‘that the defendant took medicine with regularity, over an prolonged time frame, and contemporaneously together with his buy or possession of a firearm’ and that there should be a ‘temporal nexus’ to ‘common and ongoing’ drug use.”

The ATF estimated about half of the individuals denied from buying a gun for being drug customers throughout a Nationwide Immediate Prison Background Test System (NICS) could be affected by the change. Over a decade, it stated the change might impression tens of 1000’s of NICS transfers.

“These 4,364 individuals would thus be the group that will obtain qualitative advantages from this rule, in that they’d now — opposite to present follow — have the ability to buy firearms throughout the identical 12 months through which that they had just one drug-related incident giving rise to an inference of normal use or possession,” the company wrote. “Assuming that this annual variety of commonplace denials based mostly on single-use inferences would proceed at an analogous charge sooner or later with out this rule, then over the subsequent ten years, this rule will forestall erroneously denying — as commonplace denials based mostly on single-use inferences — roughly 42,840 transfers.”

Nonetheless, it argued that will have a comparatively small general impression.

“As a result of, as a sensible matter, most delayed denials don’t end in a person failing to obtain a firearm on the idea of part 922(g)(3), amending the laws as proposed on this rule to make clear the scope of part 922(g)(3) could have solely de minimis impacts for people’ means to obtain a firearm pursuant to a delayed denial and train their Second Modification rights,” the company wrote. “Within the context of normal denials, nevertheless, the amended regulatory definition will confer a qualitative profit to individuals who would have been denied the chance to buy a firearm below the present, unamended regulatory definition.”

“Of those instances, 4,284 have been denied on the idea of inferences because of a single admission of use, single admission of possession, single failed drug take a look at in the course of the previous 12 months, or single misdemeanor drug conviction,” the ATF continued. “Including to this quantity the 80 delayed denials based mostly on a single misdemeanor conviction ends in 4,364 individuals who have been unable to obtain or retain a firearm based mostly on single-use inferences.”

The ATF cautioned that its proposed rule change might find yourself arming some harmful drug customers.

“Nonetheless, this rule’s change might doubtlessly end in an elevated danger to public security as a result of some individuals who’ve a file of just one drug offense within the related time interval could possibly be common drug customers that simply shouldn’t have information of extra offenses,” it wrote. “Underneath the present regulatory definition, such individuals would obtain commonplace NICS denials and wouldn’t have the ability to buy a firearm in the identical 12 months through which they’ve such an incident. Underneath the proposed regulatory definition, in contrast, they’d have the ability to. This rule might thus end in an elevated danger that such individuals could be below the affect of medicine when buying and thereafter possessing their firearm, representing a danger to public security.”

However as a result of comparatively few of the individuals impacted are prone to be harmful, the ATF decided the elevated danger is “de minimus.”

The company stated it’s searching for public feedback on the way it can enhance the proposed rule earlier than it goes into impact.

“ATF particularly requests feedback on the readability of this IFR and the way it could also be made simpler to know,” Driscoll wrote. “As well as, ATF requests feedback on the prices or advantages of the rule and on the suitable methodology and information for calculating these prices and advantages.”