Supreme Court To Review Constitutionality of Gun Law Used To Convict Hunter Biden

The Supreme Court will consider whether the statute used to convict Hunter Biden, which blocks Americans who regularly use drugs from owning guns, is constitutional.The court decided Monday to hear United States v. Hemani, which will look at whether 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.The government charged Ali Danial Hemani with one count of violating the statue in February 2023, several months after confiscating a gun from his home. The Texas man was investigated for a possible connection with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and when FBI agents searched his home they found a pistol and drugs.Mr. Hemani’s attorneys argued that the broadly written law puts millions of people who have used marijuana at risk of losing their gun rights. A district court and the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that it was unconstitutional to ban Mr. Hemani unless he was under the influence of drugs when he was arrested..Now, despite President Trump’s promise to roll back gun-control policies, administration lawyers are asking the justices to revive the case, claiming the ban is a justifiable restriction. They state that regular drug users pose a serious public safety risk.“This restriction provides a modest, modern analogue of much harsher founding-era restrictions on habitual drunkards, and so it stands solidly within our Nation’s history and tradition of regulation,” the government wrote in its appeal to the Supreme Court. It says the law targets “habitual” drug users and not anyone who has occasionally used drugs.Lawyers for Mr. Hemani had urged the court not to review the rulings and suggested the government did not bring up historical support for the law in the lower courts.Hemani is the latest in a string of cases the courts have faced since the landmark 2022 New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen decision that expanded the right to carry firearms in public and established historical “tests” for gun laws.The high court delivered a mixed record related to the Second Amendment in its last term. It overturned a ban on bump stocks but upheld a ban on ghost guns. The court also ruled that the federal law prohibiting firearm possession by individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders is constitutional.

Supreme Court To Review Constitutionality of Gun Law Used To Convict Hunter Biden

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