Breaking: SCOTUS Says Prosecution of Gun Owner for Marijuana Use ‘Inconsistent’ With Second Amendment

The Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. v. Hemani was the first opinion released on Thursday morning, and the Court essentially delivered a unanimous victory for Ali Danial Hemani, who was charged with possessing a firearm as an unlawful user of drugs.

The majority opinion, authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, found that the government failed to justify Section 922(g)(3) as it applies to Mr. Hemani, with the DOJ’s case suffering several major defects.

The government construes §922(g)(3) to automatically ban an individual from possessing a gun from the moment he becomes an unlawful user of any controlled substance and remains in effect until he ceases being one, regardless of what controlled substance an individual uses, in what amounts, whether his drug use has ever made him a danger to himself or others, why he keeps a gun, or how safely he does so.

The government analogizes its construction of §922(g)(3) to what it calls “habitual drunkard” laws, which it submits enjoy deep roots in the country’s history and are “relevantly similar” to the regulation it wishes to enforce.

These habitual drunkard laws fall into three general categories: vagrancy laws that allowed habitual drunkards to be confined in workhouses or jailed; civil-commitment statutes that allowed courts to appoint guardians for habitual drunkards or authorized their commitment to asylums; and surety laws under which judicial officers could compel habitual drunkards to post surety bonds to ensure their good behavior.

The government’s analogy fails on every metric it invites the Court to consider. Taken cumulatively, these problems prove fatal to the government’s prosecution of Mr. Hemani.

Gorsuch and the other justices concluded that the habitual drunkard laws are not analogous to the modern prohibition on gun possession by unlawful drug users, for several reasons; “drunkards” are not the same as every kind of drug user, the civil commitment and vagrancy laws were generally designed to protect drunkards from themselves and not the public from drunkards, and “the way habitual drunkard statutes worked in the past differs significantly from how §922(g)(3)’s unlawful user provision works today.”

There are reasons to doubt that the government has established §922(g)(3) even serves the purpose the government claims, of disarming categorically violent and unusually dangerous persons.

Section 922(g)(3)’s reliance on the Controlled Substances Act—a statute adopted to protect “the health and general welfare of the American people,” 21 U. S. C. §801(2), and under which drugs can be added to schedules for reasons having little or nothing to do with their potential to induce violence—makes it far from obvious that 18 U. S. C.§922(g)(3) confines its reach to those who are categorically and unusually dangerous.

Additionally, the government’s own regulatory actions undercut its position: the Department of Justice has directed federal prosecutors to curtail enforcement efforts against marijuana users, most States have legalized marijuana use to some degree, and the government recently moved some marijuana products from Schedule I to Schedule III, 91 Fed. Reg. 22714.

Affording the government “broad power to designate any group as dangerous and thereby disqualify its members from having a gun” would risk allowing it to “quickly swallow” the Second Amendment.

Gorsuch notes, however, that today’s decision is a narrow one, and that it does not address efforts “to ban addicts or those presently intoxicated from possessing a firearm,” and “other prophylactic laws Congress might adopt after determining that users of a particular drug pose a special risk of misusing firearms.

Section 922(g)(1)’s provision disarming individuals convicted of felonies is also left untouched by today’s opinion, as is the question about whether the government could bring a prosecution under §922(g)(3) “accompanied by individualized proof that the defendant’s drug use renders him a danger to himself or others, or proof that a certain drug always renders its users dangerous.”

Still, the decision isn’t so narrow as to only apply to Ali Hemani. As Gorsuch writes, marijuana use has become far more common than it was just a few decades ago, in part because the federal government has moved to stop prosecuting individuals for personal amounts of cannabis and more than half the country has legalized its use for medical or recreational purposes.

“Whatever one thinks of these developments, the federal government has not just tolerated them;it helped fuel them,” writes Gorsuch. “All of which leaves it awkwardly positioned to suggest that the millions of Americans who now regularly use marijuana are categorically and unusually dangerous.”

The government maintains that it may automatically strip Mr. Hemani of his Second Amendment right to possess a firearm because he uses marijuana a few times a week.

More than that, because he possessed a gun despite this prohibition, the government insists it may imprison him for up to 15 years and disarm him for life.

According to the government, none of this turns on how much marijuana Mr.Hemani uses or what effect it has on him. It makes no difference either if he keeps a firearm only in his home for self defense, never misuses a gun while intoxicated, and never poses a danger to himself or others as a result of his marijuana use.

The only thing the government must show, it says, is that an individual like Mr. Hemani regularly uses any amount of any controlled substance.

To square that expansive theory with the Second Amendment, the government invites us to draw an analogy between its present regulation and historical laws addressing habitual drunkards.

Those laws, the government contends, demonstrate a tradition of firearm regulation consistent with its effort to disarm any regular user of any controlled substance without any further showing.

But the government’s analogy fails under every measure it asks us to consider: The historical laws on which it relies targeted different kinds of people, did so for different reasons, and operated in different ways.

And faced with all these shortcomings in the government’s submission, we cannot say it has carried its conceded burden of showing its prosecution of Mr. Hemani complies with the Second Amendment. The judgment of the Fifth Circuit is affirmed.

Today’s decision doesn’t render Section 922(g(3) moot, but it does mean that individuals cannot lose their Second Amendment rights solely because they regularly use marijuana; a decision that will have an impact on millions of Americans, including those who have previously had to choose between possessing a medical marijuana card and possessing a firearm.

I’m not particularly shocked by the decision, but I am surprised that every justice agrees, even if a couple of them wrote separate concurrences instead of joining the majority opinion. I figured Alito and Roberts might not go along with the majority based on their questions during oral arguments, but Roberts joined the majority opinion and Alito wrote a concurrence in which he was joined by Justice Elena Kagan.

We’ll have more on those concurrences later today, but for now gun owners can celebrate a significant win for the right to keep and bear arms. We still have one more Second Amendment case waiting in the wings in Wolford v. Lopez, and that decision could be released as early as next Tuesday.

Sometimes it makes you wonder if the DOJ’s Right hand knows what the Left hand is doing.

Supreme Court shrugs off DOJ appeal over gun rights for nonviolent felon

The Supreme Court refused Monday to step into a high-stakes battle over whether nonviolent felons can be banned from owning guns for life, letting a lower court victory stand for a Mississippi man who lost his firearm rights over back child support.

By declining to hear the Department of Justice’s appeal, the high court left intact a ruling by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That court had overturned the conviction of Edwardham Cockerham, who pleaded guilty to violating a federal law that prohibits felons from possessing firearms.

Cockerham challenged the law after his conviction, arguing that a lifetime ban for a nonviolent offense violated his Second Amendment rights. U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho agreed, drawing a sharp distinction between violent criminals and debtors based on historical context.

“The Government analogizes failure to pay child support to theft. But during the Founding era, thieves were treated differently from debtors,” Ho wrote in the 5th Circuit’s opinion. “Thieves were subject to permanent disarmament. Debtors were not. Debtors could be imprisoned, and thus temporarily disarmed.”

Ho noted that debtors were released from prison once their debts were paid, adding that the government acknowledged Cockerham was no longer delinquent on his child support when he was caught with a firearm. “Cockerham’s conviction under §922(g)(1) violates the Second Amendment,” Ho concluded.

The Justice Department routinely defends existing federal laws regardless of internal policy views, a standard practice highlighted by officials. Harmeet Dhillon, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, noted in an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation that policy debates belong in the legislature.

“I understand people have policy differences with DOJ’s enforcement of federal laws, but, in my opinion, and I’ve said this to many gun groups, the appropriate place to launch those policy discussions is in Congress, not with us,” Dhillon said. “We have, I mean, not me, but other people in this building regularly respond to all kinds of litigation on behalf of the United States where I don’t necessarily agree with what we’re defending.”

Legal experts tracking gun rights cases viewed the Supreme Court’s refusal to take the case as a potential signal of its current legal direction, particularly following its 2024 ruling in United States v. Rahimi.

“SAF was happy to hear the Supreme Court declined to review this case, as the Fifth Circuit reached the correct ruling: dangerousness must be the standard for disarmament, and many nonviolent felons are not dangerous,” Konstadinos Moros, Director of Legal Research and Education for the Second Amendment Foundation, told the DCNF. “That includes Mr. Cockerham, whose crime was failing to pay child support.”

However, Moros cautioned against reading too much into the Supreme Court’s procedural move.

“To be clear, the Supreme Court refusing to review a particular case does not necessarily mean the Court agrees with the lower court’s decision, so we should not treat this as definitive,” Moros said. “Still, it is a possible sign that the high court is sticking closely to what it decided in Rahimi — actual dangerousness is required to deny a citizen their Second Amendment rights. The upcoming ruling in US v. Hemani should shed more light on this.”

More clarity on the court’s stance may emerge soon. The Supreme Court is currently weighing United States v. Hemani, a separate case out of the 5th Circuit involving a federal ban on firearm possession by drug users or addicts. The justices heard oral arguments in that case in March, and a decision is expected shortly.

Virginia judge shuts down universal gun background checks bill

A judge has shot down Democrats’ attempt to implement universal background checks for gun purchases in Virginia.

Virginia’s battle over gun violence prevention and gun control laws is as heated as it’s ever been now that the courts are hearing challenges to new laws passed by Democrats.

“It was a historical session for gun violence prevention,” said Del. Garrett McGuire, a Democrat from Fairfax County.

McGuire just had his universal background checks bill shot down by a judge in Lynchburg.

The bill required Virginia State Police to conduct background checks and provide criminal history records for private gun sales as well as restricting handgun purchases by teenagers.

Two gun rights groups, Gun Owners of America and Virginia Citizens Defense League, sued and won.

“One of the key reasons that the universal background checks law was unconstitutional is that it denied 18 to 20 year olds the ability to buy a handgun. Period,” said Philip Van Cleave with the Virginia Citizens Defense League.

More than 20 states and D.C. currently have some form of universal background check requirement in place, according to the Giffords Center for Violence Prevention. Virginia passed a similar law in 2020. A judge ruled against it in October.

Then the General Assembly passed a new version of the law this year. But last week, the same judge upheld their previous ruling, striking down the law.

McGuire said he championed this bill, in part, because he was a student at Virginia Tech during the campus shooting in 2007.

“Nineteen years later, I find myself in the House of Delegates still asking some of the same questions that we asked right after that shooting, including why is there a loophole in our code that allows criminals to purchase firearms?” he said.

Following the court’s ruling last week, Virginia State Police issued a notice saying the department was “prohibited from administering, enforcing, or otherwise imposing” universal background checks and that VSP “currently cannot provide criminal history background checks for the private sale of firearms.”

More than 90% of Americans support universal background checks, according to gun violence prevention group Everytown for Gun Safety.

Chris Stone with Gun Owners of America said they’re unconstitutional.

“There’s instances where people need a firearm, and they get held up in a waiting period program,” he said. “Or even if there isn’t a waiting period, their name comes back as a false positive in the NICS system.”

When asked how can people with past violent offences or mental health conditions be prevented from buying guns if there’s no background check, Stone said, “Well, ironically what that shows is that the system itself doesn’t work.”

This likely isn’t the last legal action on Virginia’s universal background checks, and gun rights groups have more gun safety laws in their sights, with additional legal challenges on the way.

Virginia’s Democratic majority also passed an assault weapons ban that goes into effect next month. This Friday, gun rights groups are challenging that law in court, too.