WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday barred the government from restricting the gun rights of casual drug users in a case involving a Texas man who occasionally consumed marijuana.
On a 9-0 vote, the court concluded that the government’s invocation of the law fell afoul of the Constitution's Second Amendment when it was used against Ali Danial Hemani.
The law makes it a crime for any person who is “an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” to possess a firearm. It is the same statute that Hunter Biden, the son of former President Joe Biden, was convicted under in June 2024 before his father pardoned him. Those prosecuted under the law can face up to 15 years in prison and a permanent ban on owning firearms.
Federal prosecutors brought the charges against Hemani after the FBI found a handgun during a search of his home in 2022. The ruling authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch does not invalidate the law across the board, but it makes it harder for prosecutors to invoke it, especially as it relates to casual drug users.
Gorsuch wrote that the ruling is a “narrow one,” which does not address broader issues raised about banning drug addicts from possessing firearms.
The court rejected the federal government’s claim that anyone who uses marijuana is a danger to others, all based on the government’s own assessment, he added.
“We appreciate drugs and guns can sometimes make for a dangerous mix,” Gorsuch wrote.
But the government’s reliance on historical laws that disarmed “habitual drunkards” misses the mark, he added.
An added wrinkle in the case is that millions of Americans regularly use marijuana, which is legally available in many states even as it remains criminalized under federal law.
The Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority often backs gun rights. In a major 2022 case that expanded the right to bear arms outside the home, the court set a new test for analyzing long-standing gun restrictions, setting off a wave of new litigation in lower courts.
“The court has sent a strong message that the government cannot criminalize the conduct of large numbers of people by making categorical and unfounded assumptions about whether they are dangerous,” Cecillia Wang, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Hemani, said in a statement.
In future cases, prosecutors would need to show more than just drug use alone and instead provide evidence that the defendant is a danger to the public as a result of consuming such illegal substances, said William Sack, a lawyer at the Second Amendment Foundation, a gun rights group.
The Justice Department did not respond to a request seeking comment.
While gun rights advocates welcomed the ruling, those who support broad firearms restrictions stressed its narrow nature.
“Today’s opinion continues to allow the government to enact and enforce reasonable categorical prohibitions on firearms ownership,” Leigh Rome, a lawyer at the Giffords Law Center, said in a statement.
Hemani successfully challenged his indictment in both a Texas-based district court and in the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Prosecutors had suggested that Hemani, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Pakistan, had ties with Iranian groups hostile to the U.S., but he has faced no specific charges on that front.
FBI agents found a handgun, marijuana and cocaine when they searched his home.
The Trump administration defended the law in court, to the annoyance of gun rights advocates. Some are frustrated that the administration, which touts its support for the Second Amendment, has not always backed up that rhetoric in court.
In another gun case before the court, the justices are considering the lawfulness of a Hawaii law that prevents people from carrying firearms onto certain private properties without permission.
