My belief is that its not the government's place to protect you from yourself. We already know that they're not responsible for protecting us from criminals, for example, or any other outside threat--the courts have ruled that way for years, and nothing is going to change in that regard absent some kind of legislation specifically addressing that--so why protect me from me?

So if you want to screw up your health doing stupid things, have at it. Especially since I've got a shelf full of bourbon and ice cream in the freezer. Neither of those are good for me, so if someone is going to do marijuana and they're not breaking the law, so be it.

And I'm heartened by seeing even relatively anti-gun voices step up to address gun rights for marijuana users.

Maryland lawmakers in a House committee took testimony on Wednesday about a measure that would protect the gun rights of medical marijuana patients under state law.

If enacted, the one-paragraph measure, HB 296, sponsored by Del. Robin L. Grammer Jr. (R), would protect the rights of registered medical marijuana patients to buy, own and carry firearms under Maryland law, even people who use cannabis are still restricted from doing so under federal statute. Grammer and others introduced similar legislation last session.

Specifically, the bill says that “a person may not be denied the right to purchase, own, possess, or carry a firearm…solely on the basis that the person is authorized to use medical cannabis” under state law.

The Maryland Senate passed identical cannabis Second Amendment protection legislation last month.

The measure “protects the firearm ownership rights of those who qualify to use medical cannabis by reconciling the public safety and health articles,” Grammer told the House Judiciary Committee at Wednesday’s hearing.

Despite state law saying that medical marijuana patients may not be denied any right or privilege merely for using medical marijuana, Grammer explained, patients nevertheless lose their ability to purchase or own firearms. In response to a request from state police, he said, a former state attorney general has said that “the best way to harmonize the statutes” is to “create a limited exception to the [handgun qualification license] statute such that Maryland State Police may not deny a license to qualifying medical cannabis patients solely on that ground. That’s what this bill does.”

So yeah, I'm heartened by this because it does protect gun rights.

I just wish it was really about gun rights and not really about trying to expand marijuana's use.

See, there are a lot of people who might use marijuana for a number of reasons but won't because the law prohibits them from owning guns if they do. A bill like this seeks to take those concerns off the table.

Yet this is Maryland. It's not like they've shown any other respect for the right to keep and bear arms. It's not like this is meant to address their past failings with regard to gun rights in the state. It's not like lawmakers there actually support the private ownership of firearms.

No, this is purely about expanding pot use as much as they can, really, and that bothers me.

Again, I don't care if people want to do it and I don't think we should be prohibited from owning guns if we so indulge. So long as the only person we're hurting is ourselves--and yes, pot isn't some miracle drug that cures all ills but has none of its own. There are problems that can arise from marijuana use--so be it.

It's just a shame that legislatures across this nation seem more inclined to help people hurt themselves than to get out of the way of people being able to protect themselves.

It shouldn't be this way. It should never have gotten to where it is now.

And yet, here we are, with anti-gun states suddenly acting like they value gun rights when it's really an effort to keep as much of society doped up as they can manage.