Court Battles Supreme Court hears arguments on whether government can disarm drug users by Zach Schonfeld - 03/02/26 6:00 AM ET by Zach Schonfeld - 03/02/26 6:00 AM ET Share ✕ LinkedIn LinkedIn Email Email NOW PLAYING The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday on whether the federal government can make it a crime for  unlawful drug users to possess a firearm .  It’s the latest Second Amendment battle to reach the conservative-majority court, which will apply its test  requiring gun control measures be consistent  with the nation’s historical tradition.  The Trump administration is defending the statute’s constitutionality against a man in Texas, who admitted to marijuana use several times a week after agents searched his home and found 60 grams of marijuana and a Glock 9mm pistol.  Since 1968, federal law has made it a crime for anyone “who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance” to possess a firearm.  In recent years,  defendants convicted under the provision  include Hunter Biden, until his father pardoned him on the charge. Still, Biden had argued it  violated his Second Amendment rights  — as his father’s administration defended its constitutionality in courts across the country.  Even as the Trump administration takes a more friendly approach to gun rights, it has continued to defend the statute. Monday’s case will pit the Justice Department against Second Amendment interests. Groups like the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America filed written briefs urging the justices to strike down the provision. Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris will make the case for the government that it is analogous to founding-era laws restricting habitual drunkards.  “For centuries, similar concerns have prompted restrictions on habitual drunkards through vagrancy, civil-commitment, and surety laws. The rise of illegal drugs similarly spurred laws temporarily disarming habitual drug users,” the Justice Department wrote in court filings.  The court is taking up the statute’s constitutionality in the criminal case of Texas resident Ali Hemani, 28.   The administration says Hemani has sympathies with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). He and his family traveled to Iran in 2020 after U.S. forces killed Qasem Soleimani at President Trump’s direction during his first term, where Hemani’s mother was allegedly seen on video praying her sons would become martyrs. The Justice Department also says Hemani has told law enforcement that if he knew about an imminent terrorist attack, he would not report it to the authorities.  Hemani’s lawyers emphasize he has never been charged with anything related to terrorism, and the Supreme Court case does not concern those accusations. All the prosecution rests on is that Hemani regularly used marijuana and was found to be in possession of a firearm.  As the Trump administration contends the statute only disarms “habitual” drug users like Hemani, he argues the statue is too vague and could cover millions of Americans. “The government’s own proffered analogues confirm that there is no historical tradition in this Nation of stripping anyone who consumes an intoxicant a few times a week of the right to keep a firearm in the home for self-defense,” his lawyers wrote.  Hemani brings a high-profile legal team that includes the American Civil Liberties Union and Clement & Murphy, a law firm formed by the high-profile conservative attorneys Paul Clement and Erin Murphy after their previous employer declined to take on new gun rights cases.  The ban on unlawful drug users possessing guns was enacted in 1968 as part of gun control measures passed following a surge of political assassinations, including former President Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.  Unlawful drug users are one of a handful of categories of people the legislation disarms. The bans have increasingly been called into doubt since the Supreme Court in 2022 expanded Second Amendment rights by ruling laws must be consistent with the nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.  In 2024, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 that the federal gun possession ban for people with domestic violence restraining orders could still stand. Now, the ban on unlawful drug users is set to take center stage.  Add as preferred source on Google Tags Hunter Biden Joe Bide