Supreme Court to consider whether illegal drug users can own guns
Supreme Court to consider whether illegal drug users can own guns
The Supreme Court agreed to take a case Monday over whether a federal law banning illegal drug users from owning guns violates the Second Amendment.
The law at the center of the case was also the basis for one of the three gun charges Hunter Biden, son of former President Joe Biden, was found guilty of by a jury last year. The former president pardoned his son late last year before leaving office.
The case the high court will hear is an appeal from the Justice Department seeking to uphold U.S.C. 922(g)(3), which bans anyone who is “an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” from owning a firearm, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found it violated the Second Amendment’s right for people to bear arms.
“The Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right that is essential to ordered liberty. Unjustifiable restrictions on that right present a grave threat to Americans’ most cherished freedoms,” the DOJ’s petition to the Supreme Court said.
“Courts should exercise the utmost vigilance in guarding that right from legislative or regulatory infringement. There are, however, narrow circumstances in which the government may justifiably burden that right, and Section 922(g)(3) provides such a circumstance,” the petition added.
The appeals court sided with Ali Hemani’s challenge of his single-count indictment under the statute, which he claimed was unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, where the high court found gun regulations must conform with the country’s history and tradition of gun laws.
The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case marks the second major gun case the justices have decided to take up this term. Earlier this month, the court agreed to hear a challenge to a Hawaii law that severely restricts where handgun owners may carry their weapons, taking up the case Wolford v. Lopez.
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The Supreme Court has yet to schedule oral arguments for either United States v. Hemani or Wolford v. Lopez, but both cases are expected to be argued before the justices sometime between January and April 2026. Decisions in both cases are expected to be released by the end of June 2026.
With its Monday orders list, the high court also agreed to hear cases involving civil claims in bankruptcy filings and whether delivery drivers who move goods that cross borders, but do not transport across borders themselves, are considered engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.
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