Trump administration defends law, softens position mid-case on banning marijuana users from owning guns
\n Washington
\nThe US Supreme Court on Thursday limited the application of a decades-old federal law that bars firearms possession by certain drug users, rejecting a position taken by President Donald Trump\u2019s administration that had threatened the gun rights of millions of Americans who \u200buse marijuana and own firearms.
\nThe justices, in a 9-0 ruling, upheld a lower court\u2019s decision to dismiss an illegal gun possession charge brought under the law at issue against Ali Hemani, an American-Pakistani \u200cdual citizen and Texas resident who told authorities he was a regular marijuana user.
\nConservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who authored the ruling, wrote that the government had failed to show that its prosecution of Hemani complied with the US Constitution\u2019s Second Amendment right to \u201ckeep and bear arms\u201d.
\nThe Trump administration had defended the law, though midway through the case it softened its position on barring marijuana users from owning guns.
\nGorsuch said the government\u2019s shift \u201cleaves it awkwardly positioned to suggest that the millions of Americans who now regularly use marijuana are categorically and unusually dangerous\u201d.
\nA 1968 federal \u200blaw called the Gun Control Act made possession of a firearm illegal for anyone who \u201cis an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance\u201d.
\nNaz Ahmad, a lawyer for Hemani, welcomed the decision.
\n\u201cThe court\u2019s \u200bunanimous ruling will protect millions of Americans from draconian punishment, simply because they happen to use marijuana and own a firearm,\u201d Ahmad said.<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s ruling stopped short of precisely defining the bounds of that legal \u200bprovision, including which types of drugs, if any, pose a special risk of misuse of guns. But the court, which often has taken an expansive view of Second Amendment protections, said the government\u2019s failure to even allege that Hemani was an addict or show that his marijuana use made him a danger to himself or others all but doomed its case.<\/p>\n
Trump administration\u2019s shift
\nThe gun restriction at issue gained national attention when federal prosecutors used it in 2024 to convict \u200bHunter Biden, who later that year received a pardon from his father, then-President Joe Biden. The president\u2019s son was accused of lying about his use of narcotics in 2018 when he purchased a Colt Cobra handgun.
\nJustice Department lawyers told the Supreme Court that Hemani\u2019s marijuana should be treated as a Schedule I controlled substance, as it was at the time of his illegal gun possession offense. But they suggested the court could create a carve-out from the gun restriction for marijuana products approved by the Food and Drug Administration or covered by a state medical marijuana license.
\nHemani moved to dismiss his charge, arguing it violated his Second Amendment rights. He also cited the stringent test the Supreme Court set in a 2022 decision requiring that gun laws be \u201cconsistent with the nation\u2019s historical tradition of firearm regulation\u201d to comport with the Second Amendment.
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\nThe New Orleans-based \u200b5th US Circuit Court of Appeals in 2025 dismissed \u200bthe illegal gun possession charge, ruling that the firearm ban cannot be applied to people unless they are under the influence of drugs while in possession of a gun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Trump administration defends law, softens position mid-case on banning marijuana users from owning guns Washington The US Supreme Court on Thursday limited the application of a decades-old federal law that bars firearms possession by certain drug users, rejecting a position taken by President Donald Trump\u2019s administration that had threatened the gun rights of millions of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":552069,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-552059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n