On Thursday, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in United States v. Hemani, a Second Amendment case concerning the rights of people who use certain drugs. This was the law, we might note, that was used to prosecute Hunter Biden on firearms charges. Now, in a unanimous decision, that law has been struck down.
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The Supreme Court unanimously struck down a law banning “habitual” marijuana users from owning firearms on Thursday.
The court ruled the law, which was used to prosecute Hunter Biden, was overbroad and improperly deprived individuals of their right to have a weapon in their homes.
The case involved a Texas man charged with a felony when FBI agents raiding his home found a handgun he kept for self-defense, and he also admitted to smoking marijuana every other day.
Justice Neal Gorsuch penned the majority decision. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion, as did Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, which was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Samuel Alito also wrote a concurring opinion, joined by Justice Elena Kagan. The official decision can be seen here.
This is an interesting twist in Second Amendment discussions.
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The syllabus of the opinion notes:
Held: The government’s prosecution of Mr. Hemani under §922(g)(3)’s unlawful user provision is inconsistent with the Second Amendment. Pp. 3–19. (a) The Second Amendment protects the right of “all Americans” to keep and bear firearms for self-defense, District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 581, though like most individual rights it has its limits, id., at 626. To determine when the government infringes the Second Amendment, the Court begins by asking whether the Amendment’s terms cover the conduct in question; if so, the Constitution “presumptively” protects it. New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U. S. 1, 24. To overcome that presumption, the government bears the burden of showing its regulatory efforts are “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Ibid. The government need not point to a “historical twin” or “precis[e] . . . historical precursors.”
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A big part of the argument on behalf of Mr. Hemani seems to hinge on the definition of “habitual user” in the context of the time in which the Second Amendment was written, when alcohol consumption was far more prevalent and in higher volumes than is common today. During arguments, Justice Gorsuch brought that point up:
Justice Neil Gorsuch focused on what he characterized as a more basic point: whether Hemani even qualified as a “habitual user” of marijuana. Gorsuch first observed that the term “habitual drunkard” carried a very different meaning in early American history, because people generally drank alcohol more often and in greater volumes. “John Adams,” Gorsuch said, “took a tankard of hard cider with his breakfast every day,” while “James Madison reportedly drank a pint of whiskey every day.”
And if those Founding Fathers were not “habitual drunkards,” Gorsuch continued, “then what do we know about Mr. Hemani? We know he uses marijuana … about every other day.” “[W]e don’t even know the quantity of how much he uses every other day,” Gorsuch emphasized. And the federal government, Gorsuch said, “has not been able to define what a user is.”
That would seem to be a key point in the decision: That difficulty in defining “user.”
There is, at present, a question on the BATFE Form 4473, which documents firearms purchases:
Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance? Warning: The use or possession of marijuana remains unlawful under Federal law regardless of whether it has been legalized or decriminalized for medicinal or recreational purposes in the state where you reside.
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That question may well be changing now. There’s another interesting facet to this, as well; this being the law used to prosecute Hunter Biden on federal firearms charges, the former presidential son may be seeing those charges go away now, though, of course, he was the beneficiary of a pardon issued by his father, as well.
We do live in interesting times.
Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.
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