A Texas man has successfully challenged a federal law that bars certain drug users from owning firearms.
For decades, the Gun Control Act of 1968 has prohibited individuals who are unlawful users of, or addicted to, controlled substances from possessing firearms or ammunition.
Last week, however, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) unanimously ruled that the prosecution of Texas resident Ali Hemani for possessing a firearm while being an unlawful drug user was inconsistent with the Second Amendment.
In 2022, a federal grand jury in Texas indicted Hemani for violating the Gun Control Act, alleging that he knowingly possessed a Glock 19 9mm pistol while being an unlawful user of controlled substances. Federal prosecutors alleged that Hemani used marijuana, promethazine, and cocaine.
During the case, evidence showed that Hemani’s pistol was stored in a closet at his parents’ home. Prosecutors did not allege that he was intoxicated or actively using controlled substances when he possessed the firearm. Instead, they based their case on his status as a regular drug user rather than on contemporaneous drug use.
Hemani moved to dismiss the indictment and the district court granted the motion. After the government appealed to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the case eventually reached the Supreme Court for review.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court said the government cannot automatically disarm a person based solely on occasional marijuana use.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, who authored the majority opinion, wrote that while some individuals who use marijuana and own firearms may pose a danger, the government cannot categorically label an entire group as dangerous and strip its members of constitutional rights without evidence.
“But, again, the government disclaims the need to show anything like that in this case. Instead, it 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,” Gorsuch’s opinion reads.
Separately, the justices are expected to consider a challenge to a Hawaii law that prohibits concealed-carry permit holders from carrying firearms on private property open to the public without first obtaining the property owner’s permission.
