By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
The U.S. Supreme Court has scheduled oral arguments March 2 in the case known as United States v. Hemani, which challenges the federal ban on firearms possession by people using illegal drugs.
ScotusBlog is reporting it is one of seven cases scheduled for high court hearings during the February argument session, which begins Feb. 23 and ends March 4.
The case involves the prosecution of Texas resident Ali Danial Hemani, who was charged after FBI agents found marijuana, 4.7 grams of cocaine and a Glock 9mm pistol during a search of his home. Hemani contends the gun prohibition for drug users violates his Second Amendment rights. As explained by ScotusBlog, “With the government’s agreement, U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant granted that request. The district court relied on a 2023 ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that struck down a conviction under the same law when “the jury did not necessarily find that” the defendant in that case “was presently or even recently engaged in unlawful drug use.”
The question before the high court is “Whether 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3), the federal statute that prohibits the possession of firearms by a person who ‘is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance,’ violates the Second Amendment as applied to respondent.”
When the government’s request for Supreme Court review was granted in October, the Second Amendment Foundation and several other gun rights groups filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court urging the court to grant certiorari in Harris v. United States, a case challenging the federal ban on firearm possession by individuals who use marijuana, and hear the cases together.
SAF is joined in the amicus filing by the California Rifle & Pistol Association, Second Amendment Law Center, Operation Blazing Sword–Pink Pistols, Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus and Minnesota Gun Owners Law Center.
At the time, Kostas Moros, SAF director of Legal Research and Education, noted that marijuana “is now legal to various extents in 40 states and socially accepted by a supermajority of Americans.”
“History shows that Founding-era laws addressed the danger of mixing alcohol and firearms by temporarily disarming the actively intoxicated, never by stripping gun rights from anyone who simply drank in moderation,” Moros noted.
“This case is critical because it affects millions of law-abiding Americans who face losing their Second Amendment rights simply for using a substance legal in their state – often for medical reasons,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “SAF is also challenging a firearms purchase ban by medical marijuana card holders in Greene v. Bondi, and we feel it’s an important issue that warrants the Supreme Court’s intervention.”
