Supreme Court sides with man challenging federal law barring drug users from owning guns

The Supreme Court has delivered a unanimous decision in favor of Ali Hemani, a Texas man who challenged a federal law preventing unlawful drug users from owning firearms. The justices found that prosecuting Hemani for possessing a handgun while being an occasional marijuana user violated the Second Amendment.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the court, emphasized that the government cannot assume individuals who regularly use marijuana are categorically violent without further evidence. He stated that granting the government broad power to disarm groups based on such assumptions risks undermining the Second Amendment.

The ruling is specific, clarifying that it does not invalidate the law entirely. It does not address prohibitions for drug addicts or those under the influence, nor does it impact restrictions on convicted felons or cases where marijuana use is proven to make a defendant dangerous. The law in question carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison, with the Justice Department estimating around 300 people are charged annually.

This decision follows the Supreme Court's 2022 landmark ruling that recognized the right to carry firearms outside the home. That ruling established a new test requiring governments to demonstrate that firearm restrictions align with the nation's historical tradition of gun regulation. The court has since applied this framework in other cases, including upholding a law that bars individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders from possessing guns.

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The government, he wrote, "asks us to conclude that anyone who regularly uses marijuana is categorically violent and dangerous without any further showing. All based on little more than its current say-so, one at odds with its own regulatory actions. And affording the government that kind of '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."