ATF form 4473 for purchasing ANY firearm asks in question 11E if you use illegal drugs, including marijuana. Answer truthfully, I assume you get rejected by the instant background check.
Not legally. Random cite: Federal law: Medical marijuana users cannot own, buy firearms | KFOR.com Oklahoma City
What is the NRA’s stance on this? Are they opposed to this rule?
This is the sort of insight I’m looking for. You don’t say if you ever had cause to use the shotgun, but clearly just having it gave you peace of mind that seems somewhat warranted. Had your home been burglarized before you had the shotgun? Were you physically threatened before/after?
My friend feels the need to carry her handgun at all times. She’s never been robbed or threatened. It’s “just in case.”
It is the most effective and reliable means for self-defense, particularly if you are not sufficiently able-bodied to win a physical fight. Pepper spray, electric stun guns, et cetera, are not nearly as effective, hence why police officers carry firearms.
I think you’ve answered your own question; your friend has made a value judgment of the merits of her concealed carry permit versus treating pain, and while you may not agree with the result it is hers to make.
Most people who feel the need to carry a concealed weapon are not doing so on the basis of a rational, cost versus benefit calculation; unless you are a police officer or someone is actively stalking you with intent to harm, the odds that you will ever need to use the weapon are very small unless you live or work in a high crime area (in which case it is generally more sensible to move or find a different job, which may be more easily said that done). However, if you are ever in the situation of having someone threaten your life with a weapon, having a firearm, and just as importantly the practical training in defensive use, is the most effective defense. For some, the low likelihood is still worth the cost, inconvenience, and liability of carrying a firearm.
You don’t say why your friend fears for her safety, or why you find it “hilariously irrational and paranoid”, but if you’ve never been the victim of a violent assault or abusive upbringing and your friend has it would go toward your difference of worldview. Many people who have never been victimized believe that “the police” will magically arrive to protect them if they are attacked, and those who have realize that laws and police won’t protect them if someone targets them out of public view. And not infrequently, police can’t or won’t protect the public because of policies, lack of support, or just because they are reluctant to place themselves in harm’s way, as displayed by Scot Peterson at the Majorie Stoneman Douglas school shooting. Again, such events may be rare, and the decision to own and carry a firearm are based on fear or a desire for imagined heroism rather than dispassionate reason, but then that is true of many of the decisions people make throughout their lives.
Stranger
Well, having a gun in the house makes you less safe, not more safe.
Given that she is in chronic pain and on drugs I would think puts her at a heightened risk for suicide. Even if she is not worried about that the gun still makes her statistically less safe overall.
But you can buy booze?? I honestly didn’t know this. Does this mean you can’t take any prescription pain killers either? Seems to me this is a backdoor way of trying to enact gun control…or trying to stifle medical marijuana use. Or some sort of agenda.
As to the OP, I’d guess she simply has a different set of priorities than the OP does. Or at least what exactly her ‘well-being’ is based on. I know some people who are very allergic to pet dander…and still choose to have a pet. Myself, I can’t understand this with my cat owning friends because, frankly, I don’t like cats as a pet. But I can totally see that if I had allergies I’d not give up my pups for anything. 
Possession and use of marijuana is a federal crime (Controlled Substances Act). As marijuana is defined as a Schedule 1 substance possession of a firearm during committing those “crimes” is illegal and compounds the crime. I’m a little surprised you aren’t aware of this since it has been a major issue in the news ever since Jeff Sessions announced his intent to pursue prosecution of marijuana possession and use to the maximum penalties allowable under federal law.
The irony is that marijuana dispensaries are largely cash-only businesses since most banks won’t deal with them (as that would be knowingly facilitating a criminal enterprise) and next to convenience stores are one of the ripest targets for burglars, so dispensaries and distributors have good reasons to want armed security but cannot legally carry them. Of course, it is also absurd that a substance as benevolent as marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug and the people who are so adamant about “state’s rights” when it comes to abortion, civil liberties, and religion are aggressive about federal authority on this issue, but then people are rationalizing machines with little internal consistency.
Stranger
Um, why don’t you ask her? Asking other people why somebody that they don’t know, values one thing over another, is rather pointless. Hell if I know, I don’t know her and can’t read her mind and neither can any one else. She obviously has her reasons, as irrational as they may seem to you.
I don’t conceal carry, or own a gun. I also do not use marijuana. I really don’t have a stake in either.
But, if you said I could never own a gun, or never use marijuana, I’d probably pick never use marijuana. As others said, there are more options for pain relief then there are for effective self defense in the U.S.
They have not made a official policy statement yet, but some NRA officials are speaking out against it.
I also want to point out that Medical Marijuana is only a maybe solution. It’s effects on pain, especially back pain, are poorly understood due to a lack of studies.
But you see, it’s not only the gun issue. Other issues could come up. Even a arrest. It’s not safe to admit to a asshole like Sessions that you are violating his very favorite federal law.
I already had it when at attempted robbery was made (I was home). It ended the discussion quickly without me needing to fire it.
I can see a desire for concealed carry as well - if someone has made a review of their lifestyle and considers themselves at risk. If they are really sick, or no longer strong enough to fight back or run - that leaves a firearm for the last resort.
Well, I knew about the marijuana prosecution, but I never really tied it to gun ownership.
I don’t follow much WRT guns and gun laws except what I read on this message board. I don’t remember anyone advocating for all those weed smokers
We have shown here on this board that that study is totally bogus.
I owned a gun, and used to target shoot; I got rid of it when I had a child. DH got rid of his target-shooting gun too, but he had one gun that belonged to his grandfather, and is some kind of rare collector’s piece. So when we were expecting a baby, and I told him I didn’t want a gun in the house, he bought a firebox (a kind of lockbox), disassembled the gun, and locked it up, then put it on a high shelf. We keep no ammo in the house. I’m not even sure you can just walk into a store and buy ammo for this particular gun anyway.
But I have never owned a concealed-carry permit, and have never desired to own one.
That’s just a little background, so you know what experience I have.
I have also had back pain. I went to a PT, and it’s completely better now. I don’t even take Tylenol, or anything. I do some stretches every morning, that take 5-10 minutes, but I probably don’t even need to do those anymore, because it’s been several years. I can walk miles, and not have any pain. At my worst, though, I could not walk half a block without being in so much pain, I thought I was going to throw up.
I would happily have signed a piece of paper giving away my gun rights in perpetuity to make the pain magically go away.
But the thing is, I’m not sure I would have believed it would work.
After a certain amount of time living with the pain, it just seems like something unbeatable. I didn’t even mention it to my doctor for several years, because who would have thought there was a solution? And in fact, the first PT didn’t help. Nor the second. But I was sort of stuck, because it was time for me to go back to work after my son had been born (the pain had started in pregnancy, and at first, I thought it would go away after I had the baby, but it didn’t), and I couldn’t with this back pain. I finally told my doctor I thought I needed to look into either surgery, or disability. She said “Let’s try PT first.”
After striking out with two PTs, my doctor said “One more, and if that one doesn’t help, I’ll refer you to a surgeon; if he says there’s nothing he can do, we’ll look into disability.”
As it happened, the third one was a miracle worker.
But here’s the thing: I really had no faith in PT or even a surgeon. I was jumping through the hoops because I had to, but I didn’t think anything was going to help.
It’s possible your friend has no faith, and really no reason to, that marijuana is going to help. Nothing else has really helped, and she has lived with the pain. She knows where every place to stop and sit in every store she shops at is. She knows all kinds of tricks to get around and live with the pain. She’s thinking that pot probably won’t help, but once she gives up her gun rights, there’s no going back. I don’t actually know what the rules are there. If you stop using marijuana, are your gun rights returned? I don’t know. She probably assumes not.
It could be that if she could be 100% certain the pot would eliminate every bit of her pain, she’d give up her gun; but she’s not. She’s not sure it will eliminate any of it, and the gun is still gone.
Now, I don’t know your friend, so I can’t be certain, but I would guess that is what she is thinking based on my own experience.
As I said, she’s never been a victim. Yet for some reason she fears she might be. I suppose it’s no different than people who fear they might be attacked by a shark if they swim in the ocean, or who refuse to fly because their plane might crash. I know it’s her right to feel that way, it just eludes my rational analysis.
God I hope you’re wrong.
As I said about 25 posts ago, I have. She basically says, “That’s just the way I feel.”
That’s a great insight. She’s said “I know pot would help” (and I know from personal experience she’s used it recreationally ;)), but there’s got to be a level of uncertainty. Whereas she already has the gun, and she’s 100% certain it makes her feel safer.
I do not believe you have but even if that one study is wrong there are many other studies that show the same thing.
Paging qadgop the mercotan.
Vicodin is not useful for long term pain management in many cases. And the chance for addiction is very high.
http://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/732048/systematic-review-opioid-treatment-chronic-back-pain-prevalence-efficacy-association
Conclusions:
Opioids are commonly prescribed for chronic back pain and may be efficacious for short-term pain relief. Long-term efficacy (≥16 weeks) is unclear. Substance use disorders are common in patients taking opioids for back pain, and aberrant medication-taking behaviors occur in up to 24% of cases.
Well, isn’t that it in a nutshell?
How we feel and how we behave are not always rational.
As much as we like to think we mostly behave according to the best of our knowledge and reasoning, there is a line of thought out there that we make our decisions subconsciously and use our conscious minds to provide justifications after the fact.
If so, everything we’ve experienced - thoughts, overheard comments, parental bias, education, etc - feeds into that, and we hope the collective wisdom we’ve attained lines up with the actual facts on the ground but know that’s not always the case. In many cases, we know it’s not the case at all. And trying to find a rational line of thinking is, in this case, a mug’s game.
It’s very difficult to say. How can I judge, sitting here typing, how painful the pain is? How can I judge how effective the marijuana is at alleviating the pain?
I’m strongly inclined to say that I would never use medical marijuana as an analgesic, even without the loss of gun ownership. But I also know that such firm resolutions are meaningless if not made with actual knowledge of the discomfort, so the best I can say is: I don’t think so, but can’t possibly know.