A Butler County man, along with a national gun rights organization, filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday against the Pennsylvania State Police challenging the law that prohibits those with even minor drug convictions from being able to obtain a license to carry a concealed firearm.
The Second Amendment lawsuit comes within days of two significant decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court expanding gun rights — including one directly on point in which the court found, unanimously, that it was improper for the federal government to prosecute a man for illegal firearm possession only because he regularly used marijuana.
“(T)he court rejected the government’s theory ‘that anyone who regularly uses marijuana is categorically violent and dangerous without any further showing,’ ” the lawsuit said.
It is that principle that Craig Philips, of Butler, and Gun Owners of America Inc., cite in the 22-page complaint filed in Pittsburgh against Pennsylvania State Police Acting Commissioner Lt. Col. George L. Bivens and Butler County Sheriff Michael T. Slupe.
Philips is a member of Gun Owners of America, the national nonprofit formed in 1976 with 2 million members and supporters. He asserts that Pennsylvania’s law governing who can obtain a license to carry a gun infringes on his constitutional right to bear arms.
He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1989 until 1992 and received an honorable discharge, the lawsuit said. Then, in 1994, it continued, Philips was convicted of possessing a small amount of marijuana, categorized as an ungraded misdemeanor.
The lawsuit asserts he has not used marijuana since that conviction and that he recently retired as an air conditioning equipment mechanic for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
While Philips, the lawsuit said, is legally allowed to own and posses firearms and has purchased handguns after passing required background checks, he is not, under Pennsylvania’s law eligible to obtain a license to carry a firearm.
He attempted to get one in 2024, the lawsuit said, in Butler County, but was denied because of the 1994 marijuana conviction.
“Defendants cannot historically justify that infringement based on a single marijuana conviction from 1994 where plaintiff Philips has since lived as a law-abiding citizen and remains eligible to possess firearms,” the lawsuit said. “No current facts support any finding that Plaintiff Philips is dangerous to himself or others.”
Without a license to carry, the lawsuit said, Philips is substantially restricted from transporting a firearm in a vehicle, carrying one for protection during a state of emergency or “exercising his right to bear arms in ordinary public life.”
The lawsuit challenges Pennsylvania’s statute that denies a license to carry a firearm to any person convicted of any offense under Pennsylvania’s drug laws “irrespective of the facts of the underlying offense or the offender’s peaceful nature.”
Pennsylvania’s drug laws, the lawsuit said, encompasses everything from ungraded misdemeanors for possessing a small amount of marijuana to possession of drug paraphernalia up to felony counts for intent to deliver a controlled substance.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday does not challenge denials for those convicted of felony offenses — only those who remain otherwise eligible.
It seeks an order finding the state’s denial of Philips’ license to carry violates the Second and 14th amendments, as well as an order permanently enjoining the state from denying a license to Philips and all other individuals prohibited based on convictions for a small amount of marijuana.
Additionally, it asks that the defendants be required to cite individualized evidence why a person ought to be denied because of potential danger to public safety.
Philips’ attorneys wrote that a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision out of New York said that a person’s right to bear arms “’shall not be infringed.’”
“Period,” Philips attorneys wrote. “There are no ‘ifs, ands or buts,’ and it does not matter (even a little bit) how important, significant, compelling or overriding the government’s justification for or interest in infringing the right.”
Messages left with the state police Tuesday evening were not immediately returned.